When you’re trying to sell a home, you need a realtor to help find a buyer quickly, work through all the complicated negotiations effectively, and handle the difficult parts that you really shouldn’t attempt to do on your own to avoid serious consequences in the future.
Since they’re trained professionals, you might think that any realtor will do it, but that’s not the case. It’s also not as easy as simply looking for the highest-rated realtor in your area. You need someone who matches your specific needs for this specific situation.
To help you get the right realtor, here are 5 questions to ask a realtor before hiring one and sticking with them.
1: What’s Your Fee, and Is It Negotiable?
This is the most basic question you need to ask. Just like when you hire any other service, you need to know how much you’re going to pay. With realtors, this is a two-part question.
First, you start by simply asking how much their fee is to give you a ballpark number and see if they’re even remotely within your budget range.
If their price is exceptionally higher than what you can afford, then the second part of this question might be unnecessary.
However, if the price is just a little out of your budget, it’s worth asking the realtor if their fees are negotiable.
If you have a home they’re confident they can sell quickly and still make a profit, many realtors will be willing to drop their fees slightly. The caveat is you might need to be more flexible with your scheduling or be an easy-to-work-with client to justify the discount.
Even outside of the realtor world, services are less likely to work with you on prices if you’re very rigid or make the job harder than it’s worth. So, keep that in mind.
2: What is Included in Your Service Package?
This is the next question you should ask. You can know how much they charge, but you obviously need to know what you’re getting for that price, too.
Every realtor has the same goal of helping you sell your home. That’s the entire point of the industry. However, selling a home requires a lot of work, and different realtors take different approaches.
Some realtors might offer a comprehensive package that includes helping you prep the home for sale, marketing it via open houses, public listings, online listings, and their own network of buyers, along with taking a variety of professional home photos with expensive equipment such as drones.
On the other hand, some might not offer as much physical marketing in favor of a more comprehensive online marketing plan, or they might expect you to have your home prepped for presentation before you even call them or know what you’re doing, etc.
The various combinations of services can be dramatically different. So, make sure you know what you’re paying for before you commit.
3: When are You Available?
This is a key question, but it’s typically not as important as the other questions on this list unless you’re on a very strict schedule due to work and other obligations.
You need to know when the realtor is available to talk, execute plans, set up open houses, and more.
This is because every realtor has their own schedule, and you obviously have yours. If the realtor is only available when you’re working, or they can only be reached once or twice a week, then you’re going to have a hard time communicating with them or getting anything done.
That’s a key point because in order for you to sell your home effectively, you’ll want to maintain a regular line of communication with your realtor. Make sure that’s possible.
4: How Will You Market the House?
This is one of the most important questions to ask a realtor before hiring them since it goes hand-in-hand with their service package, but you want to know the specific ways they’re going to market your home.
As we said earlier, a realtor can take multiple approaches to marketing, and they vary in how they approach each method, too.
For online marketing alone, which is extremely popular in recent years, you can find realtors who list your home at the top of the best sites and take professional photos, or you can find some realtors who unfortunately list it on one site with photos they took with their iPhone.
That has a major impact on whether the online marketing portion is effective.
Then you have the other forms of marketing. Do they have a plan to get the word out about open house sessions?
Are they going to use the marketing channels that are most effective for your area?
If they have a network of buyers, are they going to leverage that to close the sale quickly?
How are they going to present your home?
Will they present it as a first-time- homebuyer’s fix-up house, or a dream home that everyone’s after?
What features will they highlight the most?
There are a lot of factors that should be considered for a good marketing plan, and while you shouldn’t expect them to have everything worked out before they even know what the house looks like, you should at least know what their general approach to marketing is, and see if their approach changes after they have had more time to look things over.
There’s another reason for this, too. You want to protect yourself.
If you’re dealing with a true professional, this isn’t a problem. Unfortunately, some realtors do this, or we wouldn’t have to talk about it. If your realtor makes a bunch of false claims and overhypes the house, or they cover up flaws, you can be held legally responsible.
You need to make sure your realtor isn’t going to do that, and the best way is to hear their marketing pitch for yourself.
5: Have You Worked in the Area?
Finally, this is why it’s important to look around instead of just looking at Google ranks and reviews. Different areas have different patterns and quirks when it comes to approaching houses for sale and residential properties.
You want a realtor who has worked specifically in the area your home is in. They’ll understand local municipality laws, know where to put up signs most effectively, have connections already established, and more.
For example, a real estate agent in San Ramon will most likely have a slightly different approach than a real estate agent in New York City. You wouldn’t want to hire an NYC realtor to sell a house in San Ramon, right?
Someone from across the state who doesn’t even know your town exists can’t do nearly as well as someone who has spent significant time in the area in which you’re buying or selling.
Contact Josh Sarangal Homes for a Perfect Match
This concludes our list of the most important questions to ask a realtor before hiring one! We hope we paved the way for you when choosing the right realtor for the task at hand.
If you’re still looking for a realtor, you want the best, and you want someone who can check off each of the boxes we’ve talked about, today.
I provide top-notch services for each of my clients, carefully taking into account all their preferences and wishes, and guiding them to a perfect real estate purchase or sale.
In case you’re interested, contact me, and I’ll make it my personal mission you sign that contract with a smile on your face!