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Increasingly, the real estate industry is recognizing that agents who help people sell houses have different skills than agents who help people buy. To help you sell a house, you want someone who is good at marketing. To help you buy a house, you need someone who has a whole different set of skills.
Selling a house is strictly business and money is the object. Buying a house is more emotional, involving questions such as: Do you like it? Will it meet your needs? Does it match your belief about who you are and where you want to live? It's important for sellers to keep these differences in mind when selecting someone to market their home. You'll want to select an agent who specializes in representing sellers.
All the real estate experts, even the National Association of Realtors, suggest that before you list your home for sale, you should interview at least three agents from different companies. To come up with the names, drive around your neighborhood to see which agents are doing the most business. That'll give you an indication of whom to call. Also, talk to your friends and neighbors, asking if they would recommend their real estate agent. Perhaps your lawyer or accountant has some names as well.
Once you have the three names, it's time to interview them and select the best agent to sell your home. How do you decide? Use Frank Lougher's 24 important questions as a guide to making the final choice. You'll want to know how long they've been in the business, and how many homes they've sold recently in your neighborhood. Experience really counts in real estate and you want an expert to market your property, negotiate the sales contract and manage today's complex real estate transactions.
People buy neighborhoods first. So, your agent has to be able to sell the entire neighborhood, not just your home. You'll want to choose an agent who's really an expert in your neighborhood. This person should know about local schools and shopping as well as the real estate market.
You'll also want to learn about the agent's marketing plan. Most will have a written plan that will outline the exact steps they will take to sell your house. Check out Frank Lougher's 43-point, home marketing plan for comparison purposes. If an agent doesn't have a written plan, you should terminate the interview and proceed to the next one.
Sellers will want to find out about their net proceeds from the transaction. Ask what your costs are going to be and tell the agent you want to see his estimate of the bottom line. When a purchase agreement comes in, your agent should again, estimate how much you will net from the deal. Ask how good his numbers are and how close the estimates are to what actually happens at closing. The figures should agree within a few hundred dollars.
This is also the time to discuss the real estate agent's commission, which is normally paid by the seller. Real estate commissions are negotiable, but they are usually in the five to seven percent range. Commissions should be discussed in a business-like way. If you feel the commission is too high, be direct with your agent and say so. Another way to deal with commissions is to bring them up during the negotiation of an offer. If the buyers and sellers cannot get together, you may ask the agent(s) to work out something with their commission to make the transaction work.
Be suspicious of an agent who is too willing to reduce his commission right up front. You usually get what you pay for and an agent with the lowest fee is not necessarily the best person to help sell your home. If your real estate agent reduces his fee, the amount paid to the buyer's agent may be reduced and your home may not be shown at all. Think about it! If you were a real estate agent, which home would you show, one where you can make 2 percent or one where you can make 3 percent?
Another thing to consider is, if your agent gives up easily on his own fee, how good will he negotiate for you? You'll want to find out what services are going to be reduced with a lower fee. In today's complex real estate business, you need all the service you can get. You may find that paying a full commission will actually give you a higher sales price. |