Has An Agent Actually Asked You Whether This is the Information You Want?

When it comes to finding the best real estate agent for you, people are generally advised to seek agents in your local area, who have sold similar properties to yours. However, crucial to this is that you need to analyse their sales records carefully. This is as important as it is helpful, because it enables you to whittle down your list of potential agents to a select few — and ultimately find the right real estate agent.

Part of this initial research means investigating some of the claims the agent has made about things like “setting a new street record” or “achieving a sales price well above the reserve” to see whether these really are accomplishments, and to ensure that you’re only meeting with the most hard working and skillful sales agents, rather than wasting your time with agents who aren’t in tune with their local market.

Continue to Research Each Agent, Even After You’ve Met Them

Even after you’ve met with an agent, continue to do your research, including into your local market. Chances are you’ll be meeting with two or three potential agents, all of whom should be the cream of the crop. At this point, barring any immediate personality disconnect, what you’re going to base your decision on is their skills as a sales agent.

The best indicator of future performance is usually always based on their past performance, so ask each agent to provide you with some more statistics they think best represent them and their achievements. To be honest, this is partially a behavioural question and partially a fact-finding question.

Assess and Evaluate Your Agent’s Behaviour

The agent who simply supplies you with the same sales data that’s on their website or in their agent marketing, can almost be immediately discounted. This agent doesn’t understand you or what you’re asking and probably doesn’t care.

The agent who provides you with information about the number of groups through an inspection for a property similar to yours, the number of contracts out, and the final sales price in relation to the reserve (if it’s sold at auction), shows promise.

But the winner is the agent who does everything the second agent did, and then follows it up with something along the lines of: “Is this the information you were looking for, or is there anything else I can do to help?” This is the real estate agent who’s not only listening to you, being honest and transparent with you, but who also genuinely cares that s/he’s doing all he can to help you.

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