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How to market and sell a house or property part 3

By Marc Oster

Real Estate Agent with Y & M Real Estate LLC

April 24, 2009 03:30 AM

Hello again. This is the last of my little 3 part blog about how to market and sell a house. In this post I want to discuss choosing a Realtors.

I know this isn't the only way to market and sell a house. If you want to sell for sale by owner to save money on commission then good for you. Go put a sign in the yard, an ad on craigslist and hopefully it will sell.

But this post in mainly about how to choose a good Realtor. Do you know a Realtor? Right off the top of your head think of one. Call this person up and interview them. But in addition to this person maybe call a couple others. How to find a good Realtor? Well the first way is to ask family and friends who they know. The other ways are searching the Internet and the phone book.

What should you expect when calling and interviewing Realtors. Well when you call the first thing you should expect of them is to ask for your name, phone number, address and ask you a few questions about your home. You can feel free to ask them now what they will do to market your home or wait for them to come visit your home and give you a listing presentation. If they don't ask any questions about your home before they visit you then maybe they aren't the Realtor for you. If you are calling a Realtor and have to leave a message and if you don't get a return call within a couple hours I'd say time to move on. I make it a pledge to try and return all calls within in hour. If this Realtor doesn't return your call about listing your home how fast is he/she going to return buyer calls or other Realtor calls. I once made an offer on a property I had to wait 2 days before the Realtor called me back to even acknowledge the he had received the offer. Now that's poor business.

The Realtor you call will probably either ask to come visit your home before they do a market analysis or will just ask you questions about your home and do a market analysis before they visit your home. I myself ask questions first, do the market analysis and then visit the sellers and property. I make adjustments after that to the value if the property merits it.

What kind of marketing should you expect from a Realtor. This is an interesting question for me. I currently offer a lower priced listing package of $1000+3% to sell your home. However I don't offer everything the more traditional agent does. If you were to call me I would give you my list of what I offer to do to sell your home for that price. You can see that list here. http://www.weldcountyproperty.com/HomesAuthenticated.aspx?tabid=2217917. I will be honest and tell you I'm strongly considering joining a larger national franchise company in the Greeley area this fall to offer my clients more services, but until then Y and M Real Estate LLC is my home.

Other more traditional agents offer such things as print advertisements (which aren't very effective anymore) a larger number of agents in their office that would be able to come through your property and give feedback to the listing Realtor and you on price and condition of the property. They generally will have a large Internet presence that will gather in more buyers. They will have more of a market presence. For example the company I'm considering joining has about an 18 percent of the market in the Greeley, CO area. That is huge. Considering all the Realtors and companies out there.

The realtor you interview should bring some marketing plan or a list of what they are going to do to attempt to sell your property. They also should show you comparable properties to yours and what they sold for and how long it took. If they don't do either of these things then they aren't that good.

What kind of experience should a Realtor have? That's an interesting question. Do you take the super busy agent that sells 100 homes a year and won't have time for your home. Or do you hire the new agent that has only sold 2 homes before yours. Every Realtor has been new at some point. I'd say a good hint is how they will present themselves. Confidence and knowledge. Don't fall for the agent that comes in and promises to sell your home in 30 days. Also if you interview 3 agents and one has a higher value on your home then the other 2 then really question that Realtor on that value. Chances are they are just trying to appeal to you with the value that you probably won't be able to sell your home for and the continually ask you to lower the price later on.

A good Realtor should be able to tell you nearly all the costs of selling your home. There is more then just the commissions. If they don't take this into account when showing you what you would net from your home then you could be in trouble and get less or have to bring money to closing if the home sells.

What about contracts and Multiple Listing Service (MLS) marketing? Every Realtor you interview should be using the same state listing contract. Some Realtor's companies have more disclosures then others. These are to protect themselves and you. But the main listing contract and state disclosure forms should be the same no matter who you work with. If not then run away from that person. As for MLS marketing. Any Realtor should put your home at least in the local area MLS listing. They should also be able to post as many pictures inside and out of your home at the same time that your home goes on the market. If not some potential buyers will dismiss your home the first few days on the market if it doesn't have pictures and never look at it again.

In the end choosing a Realtor will be up to you. Each one will have a different style and way of doing business. They should be able to present this all to you at your listing interview. You should be able to get an idea of if you could work with this person. Sometimes a great Realtor won't work well with a seller due to the simple thing of personality differences.