For many people in America buying or selling their home will be the largest investment transaction they do in their whole life. They ought to view it that way, and all their decisions should be carefully thought out. Sellers should interview a few agents to ensure selection of someone with quality. The right agent can make the difference between success and failure in sales.

If you are the seller, you can choose the best agent in several different ways. You can call a few real estate offices and ask for the top one or two agents in sales production. You can easily discover four to eight agents who have achieved a reasonable level of success. Be careful, however, because production and quality can vary from office to office and company to company. One year in my sales career I finished in the top ten in a four state region for RE/MAX. At the same time a friend of mine in California finished as the number one agent in sales world wide for a large, national real estate franchise. The interesting thing was I sold more homes than he did that year. Evaluate the agents you interview carefully.

Clearly evaluate the statistics and awards that companies will give their agents yearly. Awards mean nothing if they are not held to the highest standard. The comment that I really laughed at in my career was, "Well, they are in the Million Dollar Club, they must be good." When the Million Dollar Club was invented it was ingenious. The average price in the 1970’s was probably around $40,000. Your area may be different, but in most areas the average price has increased by four times since the 1970’s. In the 1970’s you had to sell about 25 homes to receive your Million Dollar Club membership. Today in most markets, you could sell five or fewer. Why should five sales in a year be a badge of honor? In-company awards can be as misleading as the Board of Realtor awards. Ask the agent what the criterion was for him to achieve this award. If he cannot clearly state the criteria to you the award carries little value.

The agent’s statistics can be very telling on his values as a sales person and his level of knowledge. Here are the specific areas of interest to a seller:

1. How many homes did you sell last year?
2. How many homes so far this year?
3. How many did you fail to sell this year?
4. How many did you fail to sell last year?
5. What is your average list price to sale price?
6. What is your average time on the market versus market average?
7. What percentage of what you list do you sell on your own?

Questions one and two should have high numbers. There are agents in your market who sell 50, 100, 150, or even 200 homes annually. I regularly sold between 125 to 150 properties a year during my career.

For questions three and four, you want low numbers. Evaluate them as a percentage against the number of sales. Someone who lists 100 properties annually will usually have more homes that fail to sell than someone who lists 20 per year. You are not looking for someone who has 25+% of their listings that do not sell.

Question five will give you their negotiating and often pricing skills. There should not be an enormous difference between list and sales price. Buyers will always negotiate but this difference should be middle to low single digits.

Question six is pretty self-explanatory. Question seven tells you how diligently this agent will work to sell the listing themselves. You are looking for any agent who will work to sell it themselves. Many agents just list homes hoping someone else will do their job. The national average of agents selling the listing themselves is around 9%.

Ask them to define their business practices and philosophy. You are looking for someone who not only sells real estate, but who understands how to run a business efficiently and is looking to turn a profit. Now you may be offended by the profit word. If your agent is not turning a profit, he will not be in the business for much longer. He will not be able to allocate the dollars necessary to get your home sold. He will work too much and not be sharp and skilled at the moment a buyer appears. Would you want the pilot of the aircraft in which you are flying tired and overworked? Just like any other good business person, an agent should evaluate the business well, so his time will insure profitability.

Dispelling the Beliefs

Many sellers believe they should choose an agent who has been in the business a long time. Spending long years in the business does not necessarily equal having knowledge. People who do little business never learn success. A twenty year veteran doing eight transactions a year has done 160 closings, but so has a four year agent who has averaged 40 transactions a year. Who would you select? I would select the four year agent. The first agent has obtained one year of experience twenty times. He is still close to being a rookie. The four year agent has a growing business and has continued to learn because he has seen quite a few possibilities in a shorter period of time.

Others believe that it is important to choose someone who has more time to work at selling just one home. Ben Franklin said that to get something right, ask a busy man to do it. Activity begets activity in real estate. To have your home as an agent’s whole focus is a waste of time. He is not also not receiving calls for other properties he has listed that are similar to yours. The more signs he has the better he can move buyers around to other properties. You will get more market exposure from a busy agent than an idle agent. Do not be misled by non-activity agents.

Do the hard work of finding the right agent in the beginning. It will save you in the long run. Spend the time to find a quality agent who has strong business practices and strong philosophy, then listen to their counsel. You hired him to counsel you based on his knowledge and expertise. You do not spend a lot of time once you have selected a highly skilled doctor, attorney, or accountant second guessing him, do you? If you have selected the right agent, he will have the same skills as these other professionals. I know many agents, including myself, who spent as much time learning and studying their profession as these other professionals. I am not saying that you should have blind faith. Ask the why questions and listen for the answers. If the answers are plausible and passionate, then maybe this agent knows more about his job than you do, and should heed his advice.

If you need further help, call us at Real Estate Champions. We are currently working with the top agents in North America to improve their skills. You can contact us at (503) 698-2800 or