Choosing a real estate agent may be one of the most important factors in determining how quickly you sell your home and how much money you stand to make from the sale. When you select a real estate agent it is customary to sign a contract and since the contract is legally binding it is important to know if you're getting what you're paying for in advance. By using various tips for choosing a real estate agent you can save thousands of dollars and hopefully sell your house in weeks instead of months allowing you to move on with future plans instead of stressing over a property you can't move.
A great way to determine which real estate agent to choose it to see which ones are most proactive in marketing their listings. While newspaper advertisements aren't as prevalent as they once were, many realtors still use a local paper to advertise their listings as well as using multiple online resources such as Trulia or Zillow. This is a good indicator of which realtors are actively trying to sell their listings as opposed to a realtor which may be working part-time as a hobby and therefore unwilling to make the significant financial investment up front to sell a home. This factor alone will determine whether or not a realtor will provide adequate exposure for your home which will directly relate to a timely sale.
It is normally a given that a licensed realtor will be able to access and post to the Multiple Listing Service commonly referred to as the MLS. The only reason you would need to ask whether or not a realtor has this ability is to determine if they are a serious professional or someone who sells property on the side. If you choose a real estate agent by going through a national or regional brokerage firm they will almost always have MLS access. The Multiple Listing Service is a crucial part of selling a home because many home buyers often contact a buying agent and provide the specifications they are looking for in a home. Then the real estate agent will use the MLS to narrow down the list of available homes from hundreds to a dozen or less. This is the most common route for buyer agents to locate viable properties so if your home is not listed on the MLS it is virtually impossible to sell in a timely fashion.
Additional questions you may want to ask when choosing a real estate agent is how many properties they have sold within a specific time period such as per month or within the last six months. Unfortunately this isn't necessarily a great question because depending on current market conditions average home sales may have dropped in the last 6 to 12 months. It is also possible that realtors which lists more expensive properties may sell fewer homes on average, such as 3 to 4 year, especially if they are multimillion dollar homes. It is also sometimes helpful to ask what a realtor charges for commission when selling a property. This question is not used because you are actually looking to get a 4% rate instead of 6%. It is more commonly used to provide an insight into the realtors success because any realtor willing to easily lower their commission is likely to not be very good. A real estate agent which holds firm to a 6% or 7% commission and is only willing to work within a limited geographic range often has a reasonably high level of success. They will therefore be unwilling to lower their rates because it would be unnecessary to acquire new business.
These are just a few tips for choosing a real estate agent and while there are many other tips such as years of experience and using professional referrals these tips should help narrow the selection. The key in dealing with any professional is to take charge, ask lots of questions and go with your gut. If you don't have a good feeling about a real estate agent, that they have your best interest at heart or are willing to work hard for you when selling your home, then move on to the next agent. It is common knowledge that in life you get what you pay for so if a real estate agent has a high commission but also a high sell through rate they are probably worth the added expense and therefore a good choice.
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