Getting the right real estate agent when selling your home can help close the deal in the shortest time possible. All real estate agents are capable of selling, but an incompetent one can only leave your home languishing in the market for a long period of time. Here are five essential questions that you can ask your agent:
1. What are your credentials?
It is obvious that the very first step is to make sure that your real estate agent is licensed to sell your home. It is also good to know if they are member of organizations like the National Association of Realtors. Take note that top realtors have credentials such as GRI (Greater Realtors Institute) certification or CRS (Certified Residential Specialist). Also try to ask if the realtor has experience selling a house similar to yours.
2. How is your sales in the past six months?
Try to find out the number of home the agent has sold and the turnaround time of each sale. Try to check the difference between the asking price and the selling price. Even if there market factors that are beyond your agents control, you should still be able to see a pattern in the length of time your agent takes to sell a home.
3. What is your commission?
In most cases, you can expect to pay between 5% to 6%. There are some rare occasion that the commission rate is higher than this. In some cases, your realtor may be willing to go as low as 3% depending on their willingness to sell your house.
4. What is your marketing strategy for my house.
You need to know how competent and aggressive your agent is. Selling a home can be tough the ad doesn't reach its potential buyers. Your agent should be able to reach out to any potential buyer.
5. How do we communicate?
A good realtor would want to know how you would prefer to communicate? Phone calls or emails? A good realtor would also want to know how often do you want to hear updates such as an offer.
Remember that choosing the right real estate agent is as important as selling the house itself. There are so many real agents and they can sell a house but the agent you choose must be able to sell your house at the reasonable price and in the reasonable amount of time.
