Your Real Estate Agent is Your Employee, 5 Important Interview Questions to Ask

How do I find the best Realtor to sell my home?

There’s a misconception about the Real Estate world, that the agent is in charge of selling your home while you as the homeowner, sign some paperwork and wait.

– What Will My Closing Costs Be? –

Your Realtor is in truth, your employee. The term ’employee’ indicates that you are paying your agent to perform a service. Never loose sight of the fact that it is you who is actually in charge. And here’s an even more important term to remember… Fiduciary. As a fiduciary, your Real Estate agent has a legal obligation to represent you with, among other things, honesty, confidentiality and and full disclosure.

Remember that this is business. Your Real Estate agent’s professional responsibility is to follow your directions, protect your rights, and ensure that your transaction proceeds within legal boundaries. There are dozens of tasks and obligations related to this responsibility and any well qualified Realtor should be happy to describe these in detail.

– What’s My Home Worth? –

How to Interview a Real Estate Agent

If you’re putting your home on the market soon, you will be sitting down with a few local real estate agents to hear their listing presentations.

While the word “presentation” denotes a one-way communication, this should really be a two-way process. Here are a few key questions to ask that will help you gain insight into an agent’s strategies, professionalism and enthusiasm.

1. What did the last home sold in this area go for? Not only will this give you a good idea of the going rate in your neighborhood, it will shed some light on how familiar the agent is with your community and its home values.

2. How will you market my home? A standard part of any good listing presentation will highlight the various ways in which the agent will promote your home online through their own website as well as various real estate portals. Be sure to ask the agent how they follow up with leads that come in through these portals – what is their system for responding quickly and what type of information do they provide?

3. Will you host open houses and if so, how can they generate leads? Not all agents are big proponents of open houses, so ask the agent if they intend to host one or more for your home and, if so, what will they do to make it visible and worthwhile? Ask them how they collect attendees’ information and how they follow up.

Authors Note: I am firmly in the ‘Open Houses are good business’ camp. Don’t be afraid to request an Open House for your property. If I have listed your home it’s very likely I already have one scheduled.

4. What can I do to help my home sell for a higher price? An experienced agent will be able to tell you what renovations will be worth spending money on in order to sell your home faster and for a higher price, and which ones won’t. They will also be able to tell you what simple things you can do to improve your sales price, like painting or staging.

5. What factors will detract from my home’s value? If your home is not going to list at the price you had hoped for, ask the prospective agent why. If there’s pet damage or a location issue that’s going to detract from the selling price, a good agent will let you know that up front.