How to Vet a Real Estate Agent?

[Anonymous]

We're going to interview several potential real estate agents to sell my mom's house. She's looking to be out of her house in mid summer. It's in a desirable location, but hasn't had too many updates to it over the years. We are in Maryland.

I have never bought or sold a home and am not familiar with the process. Can anyone share what questions we should ask the Realtors and what we should be looking for from the real estate agent? Why would we pick one over the other? What's negotiable? Thank you.

[Anonymous]

I would ask for the addresses of their last 5 transactions where they represented the seller. Then look up each one. Do you like the photos and description? Was there a bidding war, or did it need price reductions? How long did it take to sell?

Also ask for contact info for those last 5 transactions for the sellers and call all of them to solicit their views about how the agent performed.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, PP. I hadn’t thought about that. Any other ideas, DCUM?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would ask for the addresses of their last 5 transactions where they represented the seller. Then look up each one. Do you like the photos and description? Was there a bidding war, or did it need price reductions? How long did it take to sell?

Also ask for contact info for those last 5 transactions for the sellers and call all of them to solicit their views about how the agent performed.

Good advice. As someone who has bought and sold a bit, I would go for the lowest commission. Buyers find homes online these days anyway. No realtor is going to bring you buyers that you wouldn't have anyway. My jaded opinion is that most realtors are corrupt and you're on your own to look out for yourself. Just pay the least amount possible.

Make sure that you ask each potential realtor for a list price with supporting comps. Many realtors will lie to sellers about the list price to try to get their business. No sellers realtor can squeeze more money from a buyer. However, a buyer's realtor will frequently lie to buyers about the value to try to close the deal. Then you look at all the recommendations for list price with supporting comps and make a decision for list price. Then you tell the list price to whichever realtor you choose. You can pick the lowest commission realtor and tell them a list price different from what they recommend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would ask for the addresses of their last 5 transactions where they represented the seller. Then look up each one. Do you like the photos and description? Was there a bidding war, or did it need price reductions? How long did it take to sell?

Also ask for contact info for those last 5 transactions for the sellers and call all of them to solicit their views about how the agent performed.

Good advice. As someone who has bought and sold a bit, I would go for the lowest commission. Buyers find homes online these days anyway. No realtor is going to bring you buyers that you wouldn't have anyway. My jaded opinion is that most realtors are corrupt and you're on your own to look out for yourself. Just pay the least amount possible.

Make sure that you ask each potential realtor for a list price with supporting comps. Many realtors will lie to sellers about the list price to try to get their business. No sellers realtor can squeeze more money from a buyer. However, a buyer's realtor will frequently lie to buyers about the value to try to close the deal. Then you look at all the recommendations for list price with supporting comps and make a decision for list price. Then you tell the list price to whichever realtor you choose. You can pick the lowest commission realtor and tell them a list price different from what they recommend.

LOL.

[Anonymous]

I’m OP. Why LOL to this?

[Anonymous]

Pretend you’re looking for a home in your neighborhood. Look at properties that sold in the past year and are listed now. You’ll probably see some names come up multiple times. I’d talk to those agents.

[Anonymous]

Yes, try to find the most active agents in your mother neighborhood from Zillow and Redfin with good reviews and let them give you presentation.
Make sure to include active Redfin agent also.
Mostly ask questions and listen and decide.

[Anonymous]

Ask them if they really need the full 2.5% commission or if they'll do it for less. 1.0% is fair if all they're doing is the secretarial work of arranging the photos and posting the listing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m OP. Why LOL to this?

There are realtors on this board who try to shut down posters discussing how corrupt their profession is. They're trying to keep inflated commissions and they don't want to hear that there's no reason to pay 5%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ask them if they really need the full 2.5% commission or if they'll do it for less. 1.0% is fair if all they're doing is the secretarial work of arranging the photos and posting the listing

I agree with this. Agents commission is coming down quite a lot and noone charges 2.5% for pushing papers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would ask for the addresses of their last 5 transactions where they represented the seller. Then look up each one. Do you like the photos and description? Was there a bidding war, or did it need price reductions? How long did it take to sell?

Also ask for contact info for those last 5 transactions for the sellers and call all of them to solicit their views about how the agent performed.

This info should be available on their website along with current listings. You can also search for them on Zillow and it will show their previous transactions.

[Anonymous]

Is there an agent who sells most of the homes in her neighborhood? We used that agent to sell our last house and she 100% delivered (we were under contract at $50K above list in three days, closed in three weeks).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there an agent who sells most of the homes in her neighborhood? We used that agent to sell our last house and she 100% delivered (we were under contract at $50K above list in three days, closed in three weeks).

We were the people who didn't use the agent who listed most of the homes in our neighborhood. We talked to her and thought she was terrific But my DH is a bit of a contrarian and decided to use another agent who he randomly picked form Zillow. Once the agreement was docusigned, we were turned over to a virtual assistant who was based in the Philippines. We limped along with no open houses and the assistant claiming we have many 'hit" on many websites and were really a "hot" property. After a month or so, we finally got an offer. By then the builder of our house would not extend our settlement date, so we caved an took a lower offer. There were many issues with the inspection, mismanagement of access for agents, and petty annoyances. In retrospect, we should have tried to sell it ourselves. It would have been less painful. But we are happy in our new house and it is just a bad memory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there an agent who sells most of the homes in her neighborhood? We used that agent to sell our last house and she 100% delivered (we were under contract at $50K above list in three days, closed in three weeks).

We were the people who didn't use the agent who listed most of the homes in our neighborhood. We talked to her and thought she was terrific But my DH is a bit of a contrarian and decided to use another agent who he randomly picked form Zillow. Once the agreement was docusigned, we were turned over to a virtual assistant who was based in the Philippines. We limped along with no open houses and the assistant claiming we have many 'hit" on many websites and were really a "hot" property. After a month or so, we finally got an offer. By then the builder of our house would not extend our settlement date, so we caved an took a lower offer. There were many issues with the inspection, mismanagement of access for agents, and petty annoyances. In retrospect, we should have tried to sell it ourselves. It would have been less painful. But we are happy in our new house and it is just a bad memory.

Randomly picking an agent without real people recommending them seems like the worst way to go.