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!