How to interview a real estate agent?

Many prospective home sellers and buyers are already thinking ahead to the spring season. They are thinking of how to find the right real estate agent to help them sell or buy their home? What is the information they need to make the right decision?

Understanding if a professional is the right one for the job has never been an easy task. Having spend many years in corporate management and consulting I interviewed hundreds of job candidates, I taught how to conduct effective interviews and helped many colleagues and friends prepare their resumes and interview techniques. I was also hired by companies to conduct searches for their management.

The advice that is usually given to candidates is to emphasize their strong points and play down the weaker ones. The job of the interviewer is to get past the candidate’s “self-promotion” and access the candidate in terms that are important for the job.

What does this have to do with interviewing real estate agents? Many agents (including me) provide tips for buyers and sellers on how to   interview agents. What is interesting about these tips is that they are such that the answers serve the agent who is offering them.

“Hire only someone with more then 5 years experience – less experience is not enough to sell your home” – is a hiring recommendation of the agent with 10 years of experience.

“Hire someone new to the profession – they have more time to dedicate to you” – is a hiring recommendation of a newer agent.

“Hire someone from the big brand name – you get a lot more exposure” – is a hiring recommendation of an agent with the big brand name brokerage.

“Hire some one from a small boutique – you will have specialized focus” –is a hiring recommendation of an agent with a small/no brand brokerage.

“Hire a big producer – obviously many other people are hiring them” – is a hiring recommendation of a big producer.

“Hire an agent who will give you more time” –is a hiring recommendation of a small volume agent.

I can go on and on with more points and counterpoints. You understand the dilemma.

Real estate consumers, in contrast to corporate management, may not know what is really important when hiring a person for their home selling or buying job - a real estate agent. There are a lot of negative opinions expressed by the press and consumers on various Internet forums about real estate agents. This tells me that they did not make the right choice when interviewing.

Is the hiring advice agents offer biased by the virtue of agents trying to sell themselves? Remember the old rule -"emphasize what you want to emphasize"?

What is the consumer to do and how to sort out all the conflicting advice?

Here is the first step to coming up with an answer – read the agents’ blogs. After a while of reading you as a prospective buyer or seller will begin to get a sense for what they do, how they do, what is important to them, last but not least – who they are. Do you need more answers? Do you want to know what to do, if an agent does not have a blog? Please read my blog –I will cover this in the future posts.

Please contact Faina Sechzer at 609-553-4175 when looking for real estate, homes for sale and/or listing your house to sell, and relocation assistance in Princeton, Montgomery Township, West Windsor, Hopewell, and Lawrenceville New Jersey. Referrals are accepted.
If you are moving out of the greater Princeton area, please inquire about the countrywide relocation program.


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