Selecting a Realtor

Choosing the right Realtor® to represent your interests in the sale of or purchase of your home is a very important step in ensuring your transaction is successful.  Here is a list of questions every real estate consumer should ask a prospective Realtor®.

46 Questions to Ask a Realtor®

1. How long have you been selling real estate?
2. Are you a full-time Realtor®?
3. What are your hours during a typical week?
4. How many years have you been a licensed Realtor®?
5. How many real estate companies have you worked at?
6. What degrees and certifications do you have?
7. Do you live in this community?
8. How many homes have you listed in the last three months?
9. How many homes have you sold in the last three months?
10. How many homes did you sell last year and what was the average price?
11. How many homes have you sold in your career?
12. What percentage of your business comes from referrals from past and present clients?
13. What is your average listing time on the market versus the Multiple Listing Services (MLS)?
14. What percentage of your listings do you sell yourself?
15. How many buyer inquiries do you receive each week?
16. What is your average list price to sell price ratio, and how does that compare to the rest of the MLS?
17. Where do you rank in your office? Top Lister? Top Seller? For how many years?
18. Where do you rank in your company? For how many years?
19. How strong is your name recognition in the market area?
20. What percentage of your accepted contracts close? What percentage falls apart?
21. Do you have an internet website?  Does your website contain only your listings?  Do you also market listings from other agents? – How many?
22. What is your marketing plan?
    • Where and how often will you advertise our home?
    • Do you send us a copy of all advertising after it is advertised?
    • How often will you hold open houses?
    • Will you provide television advertising? How much?
    • Will you provide us with professionally produced full-color brochures of our home?  Do you send the brochures to other real estate agents in the area?  
    • Will you provide Internet advertising?  Which ones?
    • How many Internet websites will be utilized to market our home?
    • Do you utilize the enhanced version of REALTOR.COM?
    • Will you have a professional photographer take the pictures of our home?
    • Will you use a professional virtual tour company?
    • What is your advertising budget for our home?
    • Will we receive reports from your internet marketing that track the pictures of our home that was viewed?
23. How will you make our home stand out from the rest?
24. Will you personally answer all telephone calls on our property?  
25. Do you update us during the listing and sale pending period?  Frequency?
26. What lead generation system (s) do you have to develop an inventory of buyers for your listings? Where are they? Who manages them?
27. How many qualified buyers are you currently working with? What is your follow up system?
28. How many listings do you currently have?
29. How many full-time assistants do you have?
30. Do you have enough buyer leads to require a buyer's agent or agents?
31. Will you provide us with written activity reports of the showings and prospective buyer and Realtor® comments?
32. Will you provide us with a professional staging company to prepare our home for sale?
33. What listing price do you recommend and what is the listing price based on?
34. What disclosure laws apply to us and what do we need to be aware of?
35. What are your days off?
36. Are you going to take a vacation soon?
37. Is there a licensed full-time real estate agent to care of your business during your absence?
38. How do we reach you during the listing or during the transaction?
39. Will our calls get returned in a timely manner?  Explain.
40. Do you follow up on all showings of our home and report the comments back to us?
41. What systems do you have in place that will keep you in constant contact with us during the listing and the transaction?
42. Are you fully automated with your own cell phone, personal computer, FAX machine, copier, voice mail, etc.?
43. We want to give our home the advantage of the latest marketing strategies. How much time & money do you invest each month in professional training?
44. Why should we list with you instead of another agent?
45. Can we cancel our listing if we are unhappy?
46. Do you have a list of at least 3 references that have participated in a transaction within the past 3 months?

Hopefully, you will have your pick of several excellent realtors® that you have interviewed.  By asking many questions, you can separate the best and be happy in the knowledge that your home is being faithfully represented.

Email me for my responses to all 46 questions.

Mahalo!