How To Choose a Real Estate Agent

With hundreds of agents to choose from locally, how do you sift through them to find someone to represent you that’s a good fit? It can be a daunting task for certain, but here are a few steps that will form the foundation of your search process. 

• Check a few review sites to see who stands out in the crowd
• See how active your prospective agent(s) are
• Interview the top 3 in person 

Check review sites

This is a great way to start. Have a look at Yelp and Google results for a real estate agent in your area. Yelp reviews can be quite useful since it is nearly impossible for the reviews to be fake. As a business owner, you cannot ask a friend or relative to sign up for a Yelp account and leave you a glowing 5-star review. The Yelp algorithm will eliminate a contrived review within a few hours. The ones that stick are usually quite real. Google Maps is another source for your research. The reviews are a little easier to fake than Yelp’s system, but Google is getting better at weeding out the fictitious reviews. If you are considering an agent and look them up, but they have no testimonials, that’s an agent that doesn’t care about their reputation. I would consider that a red flag for certain and continue your search.

See How Active Your Prospective Agent Has Been

Go to Homes.com and type in your prospect’s name. This site will return how many transactions any agent has had for the last 1, 2 and 5 years. It also breaks transaction out for buy and sell. Clearly, you want to hire someone that has been practicing real estate for the last few years. If you need representation as a buyer, you probably don’t want to hire someone that has a dozen closed deals on the sell side but has not represented any buyers. That doesn’t mean they’re a bad agent, just not a good fit for what you are looking for. You don’t hire a Volkswagon mechanic to work on your Mercedes…

Interview Them

The research listed so far shouldn’t take you very long to get a short list of 3 or so agents. Now is the time to set a few appointments and interview them. Pay attention to who answers their phone, and which ones return the phone call promptly if your call went to voice mail. This is an excellent test of character and a good test for how the relationship will go throughout the process. Remember, this is a job interview. Ask tough questions. Ask questions that you already know the answers to (because of the research you’ve already done)