So, the time has come, your home may be too small, you may be moving cities, whatever the reason you have decided to up sticks and sell your most prized possession. Who do you choose to sell your property? How do you make sure that the agent you employ will achieve the best result…?
What makes a good agent?
In my opinion, the three most important attributes an agent must have are 1) an enthusiasm and work ethic 2) experience and knowledge, nothing can substitute for time performing the task 3) I consider this last one the most important, they must have a genuine want to achieve you the best price.
Why do agents call themselves number one?
Agents will promote their #1 agent status as leverage to obtain more business, I have even seen multiple agents in the same company purporting this claim. But what does a number one agent mean? Usually a number one agent is decided by some sort of correlation with the number of properties sold in the previous year not by the actual results achieved when selling these properties. This leads to SOME (not all) agents developing a business where they just churn and burn. The risk with this is that because of the number of properties they are selling they a) have less time to devote to each property and b) they just want to try and close a sale to move on and are not necessarily focused on achieving the premium for the owner. The fix with this is agents may take on newer/less successful agents who are looking for their break to pick up the slack which is often not in the owner’s best interest. Confirm with the agent who will be meeting buyers for appointments and running open homes on your property.
So how do I make a decision on which agent to go with?
I would suggest that your decision making be focused around the results your agent has been achieving. Ask questions about things like their negotiation process, what they will say when asked by purchasers “what is the owner expecting” (I can almost guarantee you that question will be asked) and their sale data compared to medians in the area. Now I am by no means tarring everyone with the same brush but be careful as the last thing you want is to become just another number in someone’s plans to sell X number of properties that year.
