What Your Real Estate Agent Knows That You Don’t

 Many home seller’s hire a real estate agent either from a referral from a friend or relative or from a piece of the real estate agents advertising. Once theCanninghill Piersseller interviews the agent many times they are hired on the spot. After this how as a seller do you know if your home is getting the exposure that it deserves or know if your agent is doing a good job on your home sale? Many times this is hard to distinguish especially when you as a seller have many other concerns and other items to worry about I.E.: work, imminent move, other normal things going on vs. your real estate agent and the job they are doing for you.

Here are a few tips for you to know exactly what type of job and representation you as a seller are getting from your agent/ brokerage company. The first is how often does your agent communicate to you updates and market conditions about your home sale? A good rule of thumb should be at least once every 2 weeks and preferably once a week at least a call to you with a detailed update, for number of showings, sign calls, and other measurable ways to see how the marketplace is responding to your home. I would also recommend that agents should complete at least one open house during the first 30 days your house is on the market many times this will help get neighbors, and others that live close by to see the property which in turn sometimes makes a sale because someone that they know gets told about what the relative or friend saw at the open house down the street. As a seller you should also try to ask all questions about the transaction as you think of them so that your concerns can be taken care of ASAP, this will also help you to determine how much knowledge your agent truly has.

Agents that also seem to be exceptionally knowledgeable about every aspect of your sale should also be given more room to operate then someone who never really has an answer to your questions quickly. I say this because many times as a seller you will have questions about the transaction process as it evolves, the agent that does not give you answers right away and feels confident in the answers given should be watched very closely. There’s nothing worse then an agent that does not give you confidence as a seller that the right things are being taken care of correctly for your transaction.

A real estate agent as everyone knows is typically well paid to obtain a buyer and handle the transaction of your home sale, which for most locations is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars if not more. The reason agents are so well paid is simple they are in charge a large sums of money and only when they get a property closed do they get paid for their services, having said this I would only consider a real estate agent or brokerage that was going to market and advertise my property in several areas. For me as an agent I know every marketplace is different and what works for a single family home here in Tucson Arizona may not work for a large farm property in the center of Ohio, but the general advertising that works for most properties IE: Internet advertising, newspaper, and home magazines should all be considered by the real estate agent you employ. I employ a very sophisticated and complete internet marketing portfolio for my sellers and it works for them because in this part of the nation many people move here from across the nation and the internet is the best way to expose the property to those buyers who would not know of the home any other way. I would suggest that regardless of what advertising avenue your agent wants to use that the advertising is a complete and solid plan to give your home exceptional exposure. If they say they are going to run newspaper ads make sure you get the run dates and then buy a paper that day and look up the ad yourself to see what it looks like. A sloppy written ad or an ad with a poor picture of your home should set off alarms that maybe your agent is not doing a good enough job representing your home, and your interests. This is extremely important don’t think because your agent maybe “works for the largest brokerage around” or “Has been in the business for 20 years” means that they do a good job, I cannot tell you how many agents out there do the absolute minimum for their sellers and nothing more and only you the client suffers.

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