How to Choose a Realtor®
When You are Buying a Home
Home buying season is here;
10 Questions You Need To Ask
Realtors Whom You Interview.
By Bill Koelzer
1. How much experience have you had?
When you walk into the office of a realty firm,
you often become the “property” of the agent who is on the “up
desk.” The same thing may happen when you call in to the
realty office. Either way, you may soon be talking with the most
inexperienced agent in the firm. To protect yourself, why not
state, firmly, right from the start, that you want a Realtor®
with at least 10 years of real estate sales experience?
2. Do you work full-time as a real estate
agent?
Why be represented by an agent who only works
two days a week and sells three homes a year? Or one that has a
full time job and only dabbles at real estate? Ask for an agent who
has sold at least six homes in the last year. Ultimately, sales
experience is what counts. Similarly, you do not want a full time
Realtor® who has sold only
two homes in the past two years. Ask for a full time agent who
sells MORE than the average number of homes that are sold annually
in his firm’s office.
3. Will you provide a competitive market
analysis for a property that I might want to buy?
You MUST ask your buyer’s agent for a CMA if
you hope to pay a market-competitive price for a home. Do not rely
on just what the agent thinks about the price. Agents
can be fooled, too. In addition, you, contrary to what you may
believe, are probably the worst predictor of what you should
pay for a home. Listen to your agent.
4. Are you a dues-paying member of the
MLS? (Multiple Listing Service)
If the agent is not personally a dues-paying
member of your local MLS, do not buy a house through him. Such
agents do not have the right to use the MLS, but may access it
through colleagues or through consumer MLS portals that you,
yourself, could have used. Generally, the more experienced
Realtors® will belong to the local MLS
(and pay dearly to do so) and lesser ones will not sell enough in a
year to warrant the expense. Also, ask them if they belong to the
National Association of Realtors (NAR) and to their state
association (example:
California Association of Realtors) and to their local board of
Realtors (in Orange County, CA for example, it is the
Orange County Association of Realtors - OCAR)
5. Are you familiar with the areas in
which I want to buy?
Generally, any agent or Realtor®
can legally help you buy or sell a home anywhere in your state.
However, you are wise to deal only with agents who live and market
90% of the time in the cities and neighborhoods in which you seek a
home. There are often hidden problems with a given street or
neighborhood (soot, noise, noisy delivery trucks in a nearby
shopping center, shifting hillsides, bad roads, speeders, etc.) law
suits, condemnations, right of way problems, etc. that only a
local agent can tell you about.
6. Will you show me all
properties that best suit my needs, regardless of the listing
company?
This is very important.
Some less-than-noble firms, even some local offices of big national
realty firms, have a policy of showing you only their own
listings, and not the homes listed by every other realty firm in
town. Often, the MLS that they have created will be limited in
the same way. Realty firms make far more money this way.
Don’t be fooled. Tell
your agent that you want to see ALL the listings that are in the MLS
for your price range and for your other parameters. Ask to see
proof if you are in doubt, or go check yourself by using a consumer
version of the MLS. Don’t be afraid to ask…the bad apples are
praying that you won’t.
Some agents pay big money
themselves to offer a customized entry to the MLS from their own web
site. These are fine and often faster to use than large national
MLS services like
www.Realtor.com. See
an example from San Clemente area Realtor/Broker Debbie Ferrari at
www.DebbieFerrari.com.
7. Will you represent me
as a buyer’s agent?
You want your buyer’s
agent to negotiate with the agent of the home seller (listing, or
seller’s agent) on your behalf. Today, few California buyers sign
exclusive buyer’s agent agreements with an agent, even though
contracts exist for such an arrangement. Instead, typically you’ll
just find an agent in some office, or on the web, and tell him you
want such and such kind of home and he helps you find it.
Remember, buyer’s agents
still have a fiduciary relationship with the seller, not to you.
However, their loyalty is to you, not the seller. You might
think twice, therefore, about using the same agent (listing agent)
that the seller is using, because that agent walks a thin legal line
between maintaining the fiduciary relationship with the seller, and
representing you as well. It’s wiser to get your own agent; no
matter what the listing agent tells you.
8. The most important
factor in choosing an agent is:
Do you feel comfortable with him/her?
No one can answer this but you. If you ever start out with one
agent, but later decide you are not compatible and want a different
agent to help you, call the manager of that first agent’s office and
explain your feelings. The manager can just assign you a different
agent and spare you any embarrassment involving the first agent.
9. How much time can I expect from you?
Buyer’s agents should be willing to take you
out looking at homes almost any time that you ask. However, when
you have finished looking at all the current homes that meet your
price range and other parameters, the agent should continue
looking for matching homes, both by visiting new listings and by
hunting for them on the MLS. If an agent is not suggesting homes
for you to go view, either emailing them or calling you about them,
he may not be doing his job for you. Conversely, he should not be
showing you homes that are far off your mark, either.
10. Do you have a personal Internet web
site?
Virtually all leading regional buyer’s agents
should have not merely a web site, but a very extensive one filled
with much useful content for buyers, including hints and tips like
these above. If the agent you get when you call or visit a real
estate office does not have a truly comprehensive web site, or else
has only the limited one supplied by his realty firm, and thus lacks
one that he pays for himself, you might want to ask for another
agent. You might consider this first agent less of a buyer’s agent
than ones who demonstrate their affinity for buyers by developing a
web site primarily for the benefit of buyers.
© William Koelzer, 2007
Bill
Koelzer is a Web marketing consultant to Web-proficient agents
nationwide. He is co-author, with Barbara Cox, Ph.D., of the
Prentice-Hall books, "Internet
Marketing in Real Estate" and
Internet Marketing. Koelzer is also webmaster of
Orange County Real Estate - Search MLS, among the most-awarded
known Realtor® sites. Contact info:
www.koelzer.com
or e-mail him at Bill@Koelzer.com |
