What to look for in an agent

Whether buying or selling a house chances are you will need the help of a real estate agent. So what do you look for in an agent? Are they all the same?

Let’s cover the buyer side first. When you buy a house listed on the MLS you do not have to pay real estate commissions. The seller pays the agent for bringing a buyer to his house.

There are a few ways to go about looking at houses:
1. You can go from open house to open house in the area you are interested in.
(but keep in mind most houses are not held open).
2. You can check the internet for listings and call those agents individually to see JUST their listings.
3. Or you can find one agent and explain to him exactly what you are looking for and have him go to work for you.

Let’s say you pick option #3. Here are some things to look for:
1. Pick an agent who has a lot of product knowledge (not just about the area but also about the process of buying). An agent with product knowledge can make sure you don’t overpay for your dream house.
2. Pick someone who is not pushy. Someone who is “asking for the order” after seeing each and every house might not be the right choice.
3. Pick someone who is available full time. Some agents practice real estate part time, and that’s fine, but when a hot listing comes up you want to make sure you are one of the first ones in that house. Sometimes offer negotiations can occur at the oddest hours. He need to be there on your behalf.
4. Pick someone with lots of experience. He needs experience in writing up offers, negotiating multiple offers, avoiding all kinds of speed bumps that can come up.

It’s a FREE service. Why not take advantage of it. An agent will look for houses for you, make all the appointments, drive you to each listing, show you the houses, write up an offer, and negotiate on your behalf – all for free! You don’t HAVE to take this route but it’s something to think about.

How about when you need to sell a house?
Selling a house can be an emotional time. Some people decide to sell their house by themselves to save the commissions and that’s understandable. But let’s say you decide to employ a real estate agent, what do you look for?

First of all, be sure to interview a few agents and compare their services.

1. Pick someone who works in your neighbourhood. A local expert will know exactly how much the houses are selling for and how long it will take. He’ll know what type of buyers are most likely to buy your house and where to find them. He might even have somebody lined up from a previous listing.

2. Don’t pick an agent just because he quotes you the highest price. Unfortunately some agents will quote you a high listing price just to get the listing. The idea behind that is to just secure the listing for a few months and during that time keep reducing the price little by little until it sells. Problems with that are that when a listing sits on the market for too long
a) people (and even other agents) start losing interest in it.
b) people think something is wrong with the house
c) people start putting in “low ball” offers assuming that the sellers must be getting desperate

3. Compare their services and commissions. Find out what they charge and exactly what services they will provide for the money. Agents vary from agent to agent.

4. Pick someone who is not too pushy. He must be a little aggressive because that will be needed during offer negotiations but not against you!

Brampton real estate stats 2008-2009

Have you been wondering how the market is doing? Here are the numbers as they compare to 2008.

The Brampton market has been really strong in the past 4 months. Almost all my listings have been selling with multiple offers.  I will keep posting the monthly statistics here. So be sure to check back.

I hope to be one of the Brampton real estate agents you interview when you sell your house.

Buyer’s corner

Common (valid) concerns
1. Why not just go from open house to open house to find a place?
- Only 3% to 5% of listings hold open houses. So you will miss out on majority of the hot listings.

2. Why not buy directly from the listing agent?
- That is one option. However, remember the listing agent is working for the seller. It is his duty to get as much money as possible. First of all, there is no guarantee that the buyer commisison will be discounted for you since you will not be speaking with the sellers directly. Secondly, the contract will most likely have clauses that favour the sellers.

3. I will just call listing agents from each property to show me their listing.
- You can do that. But it can be a bit of a hassle to speak with so many agents and work with their schedules to time everything accordingly. Also, there is a good chance those agents will try to find out if they pick you up as their clients.

4. I don’t want to work with one agent and get stuck in a contract.
- It’s true some agents will want you to sign a contract so you work exclusively with them. We don’t do that. We don’t make you sign any contract.

We realize that buyers just want to see houses and buy one. THAT’S IT. Most buyers don’t really care about the inner workings on the real estate business.

You can view Brampton homes for sale here

To email us your criteria for a house so you can receive daily updates click here (coming soon)

Brampton realtor

So what’s this all about?
Simple – I provide full MLS service for a fraction of the cost.

• What’s the commission?
• What’s the catch?
• How can you be sure I can get the job done?

These are probably some of your concerns at this point. So rather then waste your time with generic real estate articles (such as: “Tips for sellers”,or ”How to declutter”) I’ll get straight to the point.

My commission:
1% for me and if another agent bring in a buyer (buyer agent) his commission will be 2.5%. Maximum total commission you will ever pay with me is 3.5%. No tricks. No conditions.

Imagine having an extra $5,000 in your pocket after the sale! Or having that money for negotiations during the offer.

• Before moving on ask yourself this:
  Will a buyer pay extra for your house if you have to pay extra commission?
  A buyer does not care how much commission the homeowners are paying. If the
  market says the house is worth $300,000 then the buyer will pay $300,000. Wouldn’t
  you do the same?

What’s the catch?
There is no catch. There are no hidden fees. All my listing agreements are in plain english and straightforward. Ofcourse I put my money where my mouth is: If for any reason you are not satisfied with my services my brokerage will cancel the listing. No questions asked and no penalties/fees will be charged.

This benefits you in two ways:
1. It gives you peace of mind
2. It puts pressure on me to keep working hard because I know at any time you can cancel.

What’s included?
I work for Remax so it’s full service. You can get more details on my marketing plan here but one key difference is that I have a professional photographer come in for pictures and a virtual tour. See sample.

Please take a few seconds to look at the sample photos and the virtual tour here. Research shows that listings with virtual tours get clicked on 4 times more then regular listings. Can you see how having a virtual tour for your house might make it stand out from the rest?

Ofcourse my answer is going to be “Yes”. But I don’t expect you to just take my word for it. So please take a look at some of my recent sales in Brampton and hopefully by the end you too will think I’m the right person to sell your house. See some of the Brampton homes I’ve sold here.

Put me to the test.
General questions at textvic@gmail.com
Free home evaluation: Click here
Cell: (647)834-6834

Different commission rates, fees, and listing and marketing services may be offered by other REMAX franchisees or sales associates in Canada.