Selling Your Home? Here Is How To Choose The Right Real Estate Agent
How To Choose A Real Estate Agent When Selling Your Home
The sad fact is that most people spend more time shopping for the newest electronic device than they do shopping for a real estate agent. This can end up costing you thousands upon thousands of dollars.
It cannot be stressed enough that you have to have the right real estate agent when selling your home.
These tips will help you make the right decision for this very important transaction:
Never hire a friend
This can be very tempting if you happen to know a real estate agent but this can often lead to you overlooking some very important things due to your personal connection. This is no time to play nice, you have to keep personal feelings out of things when it comes to selling a home.
It can be very difficult for you to haggle or outright say no to someone you are friends with. You have to be able to be firm with your real estate agent about your wants and needs so choosing someone who is not close to you is probably going to be your best bet.
Does your agent have your best interests in mind?
There are some shady real estate agents out there that are just in it to make some fast cash. That is why some will really push for a quick sale. It makes sense, they are trying to sell as many homes as fast as they can but you need someone who is committed to make you the most money possible, not someone who is just out for a quick buck.
Understand the industry
You should have a basic understanding of how the realty industry works to ensure that you are choosing the agent who is the most knowledgeable and ethical.
One thing to remember is that real estate agents who work for big firms are going to have more overhead which means they are going to want to charge you a higher commission. This is not out of greed but rather they just need to be able to pay the fees they are charged each month which can run into the thousands.
You don’t always get what you pay for
This might be true of some things but it is not applicable to real estate agents. The job of an agent is a lot simpler than it used to be thanks to computers, smartphones and the internet.
You can also find agents who have very low commissions and they provide the exact same services as others who charge many times more.
Always find out what the commission rate is going to be before you hire anyone. If you feel the commission is too high try haggling, this often works. You could even set things up with an incentive, if they sell the home within a certain amount of time you will pay a little higher commission to them.
These tips will get you started on the process of choosing the right real estate agent to sell your home successfully.