How to choose a Real Estate Agent to List Your Home - Advise to a College Buddy - Dumont, Bergen County, NJ

Video Transcript:

Hi this is Dave Miller from RE/Max Real Estate in Dumont, NJ, and today I’d like to talk about choosing an agent. I got call from a college buddy, I went to Rutgers, graduated class of ’82, college buddy who lives in the middle of Pennsylvania, and his question was ‘How do I choose an agent’ asking how to choose an agent, he’s selling his house. So I’m going to give you the same ‘college friend’ advise that I’m giving my buddy from long time ago.

You want to stay local with an Agent that is Selling a lot of homes.

The first thing is to look in your town, look for the most signs, who is selling the most houses locally. Sounds simple but that is where you want to start. You would be surprised how many people list with agents from the other side of the county, because maybe it's relative or friend. You want to stay local. On a busy Friday afternoon I don’t think the agent will want to drive a half hour or more to show your house, certainly the other agents in the office won’t. It’s nice to have the support of the whole office.

Go with a bigger/national firm for more exposure

The other thing is I would go with a bigger firm. I worked for both small and big companies and I have to say there are advantages to bigger firms. More exposure, national websites, it’s not an absolute but I definitely recommend going big. There is an advantage to go to bigger firms with the national websites driving traffic to your house. The agents have more access to education. But with that being said, the best agent is by far paramount….but hopefully you can find a good agent with a national company.

You don't want to be married to an agent for 6 months without the right to cancel

Important side note regarding paperwork, when listing a house the agent is going to look for a certain time frame… let’s say you list for 3 months, six months, you definitely want to get an exit agreement in case you’re not happy and for whatever reason. Agents will fight you on this, blame it on company, policy, etc., but you don’t want to be married to someone for six months and find out they are doing a lousy job. If you look around, the top agents are confident enough that they are doing all they can to get house sold and will guarantee it by letting you out if you’re not happy. You should be able to cancel the listing at anytime and not just cancel to take off market, cancel and go list with another agency.

Look for an agent who has furthered their education

It would also help if the agent was well versed, educated. Look for designations such as CRS, GRI… this means the agent has taken classes, seminars. The industry is always changing so you want an agent who is on top of things. You would be surprised to know how many agents got their license 10 years ago and they think they have 10 years experience, but really what they have is one year, 10 times over.

Your agent should have professional photos & video of your home

As far as marketing your home, you want an agent who hires a professional to take quality photos and video. Some agents may think it’s expensive to do so but that is what buyers want, they want photos/Video/information unobtrusive. Personally I do not like the videos as they take too long to load but it helps you to get to the top of the search engines so it's worth it. Also helps if you get your agent to put you as the featured agent on Realtor.com. That’s a bonus not all agents have access to.

Letters of Recommendation

The agent should have letters of recommendations, people you can call or email. Also stop in the local hardware store, ask you neighbors…the agent should be well known, doing a lot of business locally and giving back to community.

Don't choose an agent by the highest listing price they give you.

A big mistake, is choosing by price. It’s human nature to gravitate to the higher listing price but you should be able to look at the comparable sales and see the facts. You want the best agent. Then decide with that agent the best price you want to put your home on the market for. I’m sure if you sat down with your agent and said, you would like to go a little higher than their suggested price, the agent will be OK with that as long as its within reason and you agree if it doesn’t sell within a certain amount of time you will adjust the price.

… in regard to commission

You don’t want to have the lowest or the highest commission in town. What you want is to have the MLS agents enthusiastic about showing your home.

Irish

It helps if you like your agent and get along, you’ll be working together for several months…….one last thing it helps if your agent is a quarter Irish because it’s nice to have some luck on your side.

Dave Miller – RE/Max Integrity

75 East Madison Avenue

Dumont, NJ 07628

201-385-8100

www.DaveMillerRealEstate.com

Dave@DaveMillerRealEstate.com

When selling my home, do I have to have a sign on my lawn? - Dumont, Bergen County, NJ

Dave Miller of RE/Max Integrity, Dumont, NJ discusses the benefits of having a for sale sign on your lawn.

Dave Miller – RE/Max Integrity

75 East Madison Avenue

Dumont, NJ 07628

201-385-8100

www.DaveMillerRealEstate.com

Dave@DaveMillerRealEstate.com

Text of video & supporting charts are below

Hi this is Dave Miller from Remax Integrity in Dumont, NJ. I'm coming to you from my home office, excuse my casual attire. This is my October 2011 market update for Bergen County NJ. I'm wearing my Texas Longhorn tee shirt... my daughter is a freshmen this year in Austin Texas. My wife and I miss her terribly but fortunately I still have my 14 year old daughter at home and my dog Chester...
I just want to give you a brief history of prices that might help us understand where we are now.
I picked Dumont, NJ as an example. These stats go for almost any town in Bergen County. At the end I will bring in Bergen County prices.

This history starts in 1985, when I started in real estate. Prices started at $126,000 then went up to $190,000. In October of 1987 the stock market crashed prices we had a savings and loan scandal and prices dropped 15 to 20 percent. People tend to forget that prices came down quite a bit. So all threw the 1990's we were selling houses that were slightly increasing each year. Until we got to 2001, after the 9-11 terrorist attacks the interest rates dropped tremendously and that helped spur (along with lenient loan practices) prices doubling in a short period of time and that's part of the mess we are in now.

I wanted to point out does feel like we have some footing. Finally this year are prices are slightly higher then last year Hopefully you can see that there. This is very encouraging news. This proves Bergen County as a whole. You can see last years average price $560,190 for a single family home and this years average price of $568,070 (as of Sept 28th). We are finally seeing a light increase... of course the prices are down quite a bit from the height of $680,313 in 2006.

Notes: Sold = total singe family homes sold in Bergen County
Co-Broker = homes sold through MLS with two brokers involved
List/Sold = homes listed in MLS but sold by the listing agency
DOM = Days on Market
Sale Price/List Price = example: Sellers revieved 92% of their asking price

What this means is from a buyer stand point is you might finally have confidence that we've hit bottom. It might take 5 to 10 years to recover prices but we are going to see a slight increase each year from here on. Interest rates are now approx 4%. Now is terrific time to buy. You can gain equity not just by home prices increasing but by owning and paying down the mortgage aggressively... better then renting over 5 to 10 years.

As far as selling I think to have to make a decision whether how long you are going to wait it out.
There is also the factor of foreclosures flooding the market but I've recieved over 240 emails recently from buyers inquiring about homes. There are a lot of buyers out there who have been holding off that are tired of waiting.
My prediction is we are going to be treading water in regard to prices...going up slightly. I feel like we are turning the corner and I think people are going to look back and say I wish I bought a home in 2011 - 2012.