When Jeanne Kuntz and her husband wanted to sell their Carol Stream home this spring, she asked a friend who was a real estate agent to sell it for her. Less than a week later, it was sold.
And when some of Jeanne’s friends in the area decided they’d also like to test the real estate waters, they asked Jeanne who it was who sold her house.
This example illustrates the most common method of choosing a real estate agent: Start with a solid referral.
“Probably 75 to 80 percent of our business comes from referrals,” says Nancy Thunberg, an office manager for Prudential Preferred Properties in Bloomingdale. “There are companies with good track records and people using them are usually a source of future referral business.”
Agents and real estate agencies agree it’s common to line up two or three agents at a time and then interview them all.
“I’d say that if someone recommends you to a friend, that’s usually all the other person wants to know (about an agent) for a local move,” says Tim Baker, of RE/MAX Affiliates in Naperville. “But about 40 percent of the people who relocate will get two or three agents from different companies and go from there.”
Deciding which agent or agency you should hire should be based upon a thorough assessment of both them and yourself–your needs in selling or buying a home and what kind of service you expect.
– Whether you’re moving locally or far away, use referrals from friends, community development groups or local business associations to determine the best agents and agencies that know the area you’re moving to. Experts say the advertising and marketing used throughout communities–from billboards to yard signs–is also effective in leading clients to finding an agent.
“There’s so much more marketing these days in newspapers, Web sites, mailings, you name it,” says Nancy Taylor, an office manager for Coldwell Banker Carol Stream. “People are a lot more educated and they’ll often find their way to a company or agent that’s been marketed the best.”
– After finding brokers, find out who are the top producers for the firm. Ask each one how many houses he or she has sold in the area, including addresses and references. Know what the total number of transactions in the last year were, and how many houses the agent sold in the price range you’re looking for.
“I’d also ask about his procedure for business,” Baker says. “How is the agent staffed, and what level of communication will be maintained with the client?”
– Know what marketing plan the agent intends to use, and what the terms of your contract with his agency will be. Most agents will list your house for 90 to 120 days.
Taylor says that the marketing plan should be presented in writing.
“People can say anything, but it needs to be in writing,” Taylor says. “I’d also ask for some kind of statistics showing customer satisfaction.”
“Marketing today is not just a matter of pricing,” Thunberg says. “The key to selling a house is exposure. You have to get the house in front of people and target your marketing.”
– Your agent should be able to demonstrate competency by explaining why one marketing strategy will work better than another.
“You have to know your market,” Baker says. “A public open house may work in one community that has a lot of new construction, but it would bomb somewhere else,” he says. “Advertising works very well. We get a good percentage of our sales from ads. They help to sell a house if the home has some special features.”
– Make sure your agent understands the market and the community where you are selling. It’s hard to imagine someone working in Evanston really knowing the homes and community located somewhere like Naperville, for instance. Baker says that in DuPage County, for example, the average mortgage is only 4.7 years, which indicates a highly transient market.
“Compare that with Elmhurst, which has many older, well-established homes that don’t come on the market very often,” Baker says. “A transferee probably isn’t as likely to relocate there as he might in somewhere like Naperville, where there are over 100 homes coming on the market each week.”
– Make sure your agent is licensed and feel free to ask about credentials. You’ll also want to know how active the market in your area is liable to be.
“Agents should be prepared to tell you how long they’ve been licensed and working, what their selling area is, and what the average turnaround time from listing to selling should be,” says Joyce Spinelli of Century 21 All Professionals in Glen Ellyn.
– A real estate company with good relocation ties is also important. Anne Schiller, who co-owns Schiller Real Estate Inc. in Elmhurst, works with Relo, one of the largest such relocation firms.
“There is a whole list of things you should consider as part of your decision,” Schiller says. “You want a company with a thorough knowledge about the area you’re moving to, and a company that has and maintains good communication with clients.”
– Be sure your agent and his company can provide you with all the information you’ll need to select your house and the area where it’s located–and can provide that same information to a prospective buyer of your home.
“You want an agency that’s thorough, that can give you room-by-room descriptions of homes, has information about local schools, and has a staff in the office that’s on call on a consistent basis,” Baker says.
– Match yourself with your agent. Agencies are probably only as good as the people who work for them, and agents agree it’s the quality of the relationship with the person you’re working with that really makes the difference.
“This is still a people business,” says Ron Scacco, office manager for RE/MAX All Pro in Bloomingdale. “Any given franchise may have a strength in one area, but it’s still the person you meet up with, and develop a rapport with. You’re looking for experience, credentials and so forth, but once you’re past that, it’s the confidence you feel in that person.”
– Try to choose an agent you feel can respond to your needs. If you’re in need of feedback on a regular basis, make sure the agent knows you’re expecting regular and prompt information. Sometimes an agency will assign someone to you, based upon certain criteria.
“If you call the office and ask for management, we’ll often choose the person we feel will be the best fit,” Schiller says. “Often the choice of agent will be based on the location the client wants, his price range, the experience level of the agent, and any information we get from the client as to the type of agent he’d like to work with.”
– Successful agents can be mass marketed just like their agencies. Is it better to go with an agent with 100 listings or an agent whose listings number only 10? The answers are mixed, but you can get results from both.
Schiller says it depends on the agents as far as the number of listings they carry.
“Some agents have assistants, and some only want to do a certain amount of business,” she says.
Thunberg says agents with 100 homes might not offer enough personal attention and agrees with Schiller that additional staff members are needed to market a home.
“You can get results, however, from both the agent with a few listings as well as one with many,” Thunberg says.
But agents with more listings often offer more feedback and better service because of the support staff that work with them; this extra service helps instill a greater confidence in their clients.
“The approach with a large number of listings is very routine, and very systematic,” Baker says. “We have staff people that can contact our clients daily regarding their homes–something that the person doing all his own paperwork and legwork can’t do.”
Regardless of how many listings an agent has, his professionalism and experience cannot be understated.
“Let’s put it this way,” Baker says. “If you needed a serious operation, would you go to the doctor who had tried this procedure five times, or the guy who has done 100 procedures already and feels it’s routine? When you’re talking about buying a home, this is where you live, go to work from, where your kids will go to school, where you’ll eat, shop, sleep, raise your family. In terms of life’s flow, an agent is as important as a surgeon.”
