My Real Estate agent cares about me…
And they also care about their 5 to 10 other clients. In some cases, they care about 20-30 clients at one time…and let’s not forget their 200 to thousands of past clients and other potential clients they’re marketing to for their daily bread. Agents MUST look out for their own interests because too many people distrust them, find another agent who is just as excited, if not more to earn their business or in many cases think they can do the work of the agent by themselves.
One of the reasons why I got out of the business is because I felt like it was too tough balancing the interests of all clients equally. When a client was trying to buy an $80,000 condo and another one was trying to sell at $950,000 waterfront home…who do you think I would probably end up perking up a little more when the phone calls? I was one of the few out there at the time who tried to give just as much attention to the $80,000 client that I did to the Million dollar client as well. However, to be frank, there was a reason why the $80,000 client was only seeking to buy something that price — in many cases, they were hard to manage. They were needy in many instances. Some of them expected Million dollar service & didn’t realize that the 80 hours I was going to give them was worth about $800 maybe at most after the broker, the tax man, and the local and state government got theirs. Don’t forget, all the expenses as well in driving them around, feeding them at times, printing & internet costs and various other expenses sometimes ate away at the bottom line & I was making a whopping $7.50 an hour for helping them — 4 months later.
It’s not a 100% fair business. However, knowing all the ins and outs helps you get better service & also helps you get a better house or get more dollars on the sale of your home.
Here’s 5 tips to help you get that better service:
1) Do a little research on your own to obtain the value of the local market or for your home.
Use all the websites out there that can get you familiar with the local market. There’s Zillow, Cyberhomes, Real Estate ABC and very recently HouseFront.com which has joined the online market. These are NOT all accurate. There was an article in Time or US News that compared these guys — I don’t have the link unfortunately — and it showed how some of these services were off by HUGE percentage points at times. Some were accurate though. There are also county & public records as well. Ask some agents to do it for you that you trust.
However, don’t submit anything that requires an email — and if these sites require one, make sure they have an agreement that says they will not distribute your information to anyone. If they don’t, there’s a good chance you’ll get spammed by a bunch of Agents.
2) There are a bunch of places where they ask you to submit information to get a valuation of your home.
…pssss, it’s a marketing tool by Agents and the websites that exist out there that try to profit from the agent & you in the end. One of those sites were the reason why I was able to get a lot of phone numbers and emails. The name of the site was homebuyersusa.com. They sent me all the people that entered in information about relocating or learning about a new place to move to & I paid a subscription eventually & agreed to cut them a check if I made a sale on the lead they gave me. It was ingenious, but to be frank, most of the people entering their information had no idea it was a little ploy as well.
HouseValues.com also operates in the same manner. Homegain.com does something similar except it finds some way to connect the agent to you & sells the service to agents. All three of these knew that agents were HUNGRY for new leads & profited immensely and still do a considerable extent from the agents.
3) Interview your agents — all of them. If they’re not willing to ask some questions, you don’t need them. You don’t want to waste all their time (refer to the example above about the $80k client). Create a list of questions to ask them. Ask the same list of questions to all prospective emails. Ask them if they are “up to date” on the technological tools available these days? If not, they aren’t as competitive as other agents when it comes to have all the information needed for a purchase or sale. Ask them all these questions via email. Test them to see how fast they get back to you. If it takes a while, there’s a chance it will also take a while when you need them in the time you need to buy your house or sell it.
4) Ask me any questions you want. I’ll address them here. I’m out of the business now & can give you a frank & objective opinion.
5) Ask your friends about their experiences with agents, but make sure when getting the advice that you’re asking them the same questions as above. A lot of friends actually didn’t do much homework & got “lucky” once with a realtor or agent & then vouch for that agent forever & then find out that they weren’t that great in the first place. Make sure that the recommendations have more than just a good experience associated with it.
Hello, Brandon, You were the selling agent back in 2005 when we bought our townhome in the Issaquah Highlands. I walked by the now almost complete low income townhouses behind your home and thought about your smart timing in selling your house before the townhome project got started. It looks like you are no longer active in real estate sales. I am still in the mortage business but at a crossroads of whether I want continue to run a mortgage business with all of the attendant headaches or do loans myself on a free-lance basis (more likely), and explore other endeavours.
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