Ideas on how to pick a Real Estate Agent?

[DadofThree]

This may seem like a silly question but what are some things to look for in picking a Agent?

 

I know we want to work with a full time agent instead of a part time agent. But beyond that we have no idea.

 

My wife wants to use the biggest name agent in our area. I believe a smaller name agent would dedicate more time to us as they might have less clients? This is just my opinion. What do members believe.

 

Have no family to ask who they used and prefer not use our friends agent as he too social-able .

 

We don't want to just start calling names in the phone book. Any suggestions?

[luckydriver]

i just watched a home show last night where they asked how many listings the agent has and how many homes they sold last year etc. those sound like 2 pretty good indicators to me but there's a lot more that goes into a decision. it's definitely an interview process where you need to ask some hard questions. if they arent comfortable talking about their sales, would make me wonder why.

 

of course i have no idea what a good agent does to in a year so you need to find that out somehow

[jmf8756]

Are you buying or selling?

[DadofThree]

Looking at buying. I know we will look at a lot of homes because we tend to over analyze things.

[Realtor in Houston]

To me, I would be less concerned about the questions you ask your realtor, and more concerned about the questions they ask you.

 

There is some kind of medium ground. If you choose an agent that has an extremely high level of production, they usually didn't get that high level of production from showing a lot of houses to every client, so at some point you may have a feeling that they're trying to rush your decision making process.

 

On the other hand, if you work with an agent that doesn't close on many homes, then they might not have the expertise to help you with situations you might encounter.

 

The main thing, though, is do they seem to invest themselves in you, and want to do a great job servicing your specific situation? The best way to indicate that is to ask you questions. So if they're not asking you a bunch of questions, I would question how good of a realtor they can be for you.

 

But that's just me.