First Time Sellers Tips Part 2

Your mindset is good, you know you want to sell your home and have taken as much precaution as possible to 'detach' yourself from its sentimental value to you. Now you need to find the right person to help you along your journey.

The REALTOR- homesellus maximus.

Now, you don't HAVE to hire a REALTOR. You can choose to do his/her/their job on your own. If that's the option you'd like to take, come back tomorrow to continue the selling tutorial.

If you would like to chose a REALTOR, there's many routes you can go and many questions you should have in your arsenal. I recommend that you INTERVIEW at least two, probably multiple.

• "Say whuuu? A REALTOR suggesting that we interview competition for him?" No doubt about it! I'm confident that if you interview other agents, you will see more vividly the value of hiring me. If you do not agree, I promise that you'll be happy that you interviewed (and chose) another.

Who should you interview?

1. Ask your friends and loved ones who have sold a house how their agent was. If he/ she was excellent, that's someone to strongly consider.
2. Call Jim Ludes- he's great. That's a joke....but seriously, if I'm good enough to provide info on a blog, I might just meet the rest of your real estate needs.
3. An offshoot of #2 is, search the web. You cannot guarantee you'll find a 'winner' there...but you;ll probably find some names of folks that are up to date on technology, like yourself.
4. You can always blindly call a real estate office (or multiple). This will be your highest percentage of finding the 'bad ones' because it leaves a whole lot up to chance....but you WILL find some winners this way too.

Once you have selected a REALTOR (or several) to interview, you need to know what to ask them. This is a job interview for us and you should treat it that way. Ask questions and look not only for professionalism, but a good match for your personality. Trust your gut on the agent's preparation and knowledge of subject matter. Be advised, those agents that are worth their salt are interviewing you too.....it can, will and does happen that you select a REALTOR but that individual does not think he/she will mesh with you as a seller. Obviously, as with all things, openness and honesty will provide for the best working environment and ease of transaction.

What questions to ask a potential agent? Or, more specifically, topics that you probably want to touch on...

• Everybody wants to know production. That's good....you may want someone with many transactions behind him/her. Keep in mind, Before I got to 50 transactions, I needed to do one and two. Before the highest/mightiest of all REALTORS got to 5,000 transactions, she had to do number 1-5....newness isn't necessarily a deth knell- though I believe it's tough to compare on a lot of levels.
• Certainly a top-notch agent will have a pricing plan and data to back up his/her numbers.
• The biggest thing to touch on is marketing plan. Anyone can pick a price and stick a sign in the yard....that's not selling real estate. You should know what your chosen agent is going to be doing on a daily basis, behind the scenes, to sell your home for you. WHERE WILL IT BE ADVERTISED? WHY is this effective? Do you do anything cutting edge? What do you do better than the competition I'll be interviewing?
• Commission. You're going to ask it so I don't even know why I bother putting it in. But you should be most interested NOT in the number....but in what that individual or team will be doing to earn it!

Then there are other questions that too few sellers realize they should ask...

• How about references? Does anyone vouch that you do the job well? (This is probably inapplicable if the agent IS a referral from someone)
• What if you stink? What do we do if we're not happy with each other? What have you done in these instances in the past? Why does this happen? Have you ever had a complaint filed against you?
• What sets you apart? Certainly you do something better than the others I'll interview, what would that be?
• Who else works with you? Do you have service partners? Will folks from your office call here? Do you do your own open houses or will someone be sitting them for you?
• Is this your full-time job? Will I be able to reach you when I need you or do I need to wait till 5:00 everyday?
• How do you communicate? Do you have one line that you never answer? Voicemail? Do you text? Email? Instant message?

There's a few questions that you probably want to be on top of. And more than anything at this point....trust your gut. And ALWAYS go for service of price.....You can't get Steak and McDonald's for the same price....and I can just about promise you're always happier with a steak.

Tomorrow- prepping the home.