Finding the Right Agent Means Asking the Right Questions
From now until Super Bowl Sunday 2000 is the slowest time of year for home sales.
If you must sell your home now, be sure it is in tiptop condition to appeal to the widest number of potential buyers.
Painting, cleaning and repairing are musts. Spending a few hundred dollars, or even a few thousand, on these fix-up expenses should be repaid many times over in extra profit.
The smartest home sellers get their residences into “model home” condition. That means cleaning out closets, having a garage sale or perhaps calling the Salvation Army to haul away your reusable items.
Some realty agents even recommend hiring professional home “stagers” who will remove the seller’s old furniture and replace it with showroom rental furniture.
The key to a successful home sale, especially at this time of year, is to hire the best realty agent. Ask friends, neighbors and business associates for their recommendations.
Also visit nearby open houses to meet agents who are selling neighborhood homes. More important, you’ll want to see how they treat prospects and inspect their competitive listings.
Check the newspaper classified ads for homes for sale in your vicinity. Then phone the three or four agents who seem most successful in selling nearby homes. Ask them to give you their listing presentations. They will be eager to do so.
Be sure to have a list of questions for the agents you interview. Here are five key questions to include:
1. What do you think my home is worth?
After each agent inspects your residence, he or she should prepare a written comparative market analysis. This form shows recent sales prices of comparable homes, asking prices of nearby residences now for sale and listings that didn’t sell.
Check the comparable home sales used by each agent. Are they the same as those of other agents you interview? If not, why not?
Each agent will then recommend an asking price for your home, but don’t be fooled by one common tactic. Some agents “high ball” their estimates, hoping to get your listing. Those agents then ask for price reductions later.
2. What is your marketing plan for my home?
The best agents will prepare a written marketing plan for your home sale. Each agent should include the local multiple listing service, the most powerful sales tool available because it gives your home maximum market exposure to all local agents.
Watch out for any agent who doesn’t use the multiple listings. These agents are trying to keep sales commissions within their brokerage offices. That’s good for them but bad for sellers and buyers. Insist that your listing be put into the local listing service for distribution to members.
Also, inquire about Internet marketing through the agent’s Web site, plus the local and national multiple listings on the Internet.
In addition, each agent’s marketing plan should include weekly newspaper advertising of your home, plus brochures and local home sales magazine ads.
The plan should include at least weekly phone calls or activity reports to you about your home showings and reactions of prospective buyers and other agents. Be sure to insist on written copies of your listing service information and weekly ads and a printout of your home’s Internet listing.
3. How long a listing do you require?
The best agents will tell you they want a 90-day listing. That length gives the agents plenty of time to market your home but not too much time if you want a prompt sale. As most agents know, they work hardest, smartest and fastest just before the listing expires.
Other agents will tell you they want a six-month listing. Their strategy is to tell you something like this: “The average home here sells in 121 days, so I need a six-month listing.” But you don’t want an “average” agent.
If an agent doesn’t have enough confidence in his or her ability to sell your home in 90 days, don’t list with that agent. However, if an exceptional agent wants a 180-day listing but will include an unconditional cancellation clause, that is acceptable.
4. What are the names and phone numbers of your last 10 home sellers?
The best agents will give you their home seller (not buyer) references before you ask. When agents refuse this information, such as by saying, “That information is confidential,” they are hiding poor records. When you phone each previous seller, ask: “Were you in any way unhappy with your agent? Would you list your home again with the same agent?”
Also inquire about the agent’s recent listings that didn’t sell. Even the best agents have them. Phone those sellers to inquire why their homes didn’t sell. But be aware that unsold homes were often overpriced and the sellers might have refused to reduce the asking price to market value.
5. How many listings do you have, and what percentage of your listings sell?
Beware of “numbers agents,” who have more than 20 listings and know only a percentage of those listings will sell. That implies impersonal service.
Successful agents who have 10 to 20 listings will have the time to sell your home for top price. An agent who takes a high number of listings but sells relatively few of them, say 50%, is not the best agent for you.
Incidentally, the longer the agent has been selling homes in your community, the better. The top agents work on referrals. For example, I enjoy working with a local agent who has been around about 15 years. We’ve had at least a dozen transactions together, and he’s always available when I want to buy or sell a property.
Summary: Interview at least three successful local realty agents and ask these five key questions before selecting the best agent to get your home listing. Since this is one of your biggest financial transactions, hire the agent you think will maximize the probability of selling your home for top dollar within 90 days.
Robert J. Bruss is a syndicated columnist as well as a real estate investor, lawyer, broker and educator in the Bay Area.
