Top three questions to ask a real estate agent before hiring them. 

When you're thinking about selling your home, what questions should you ask a real estate agent? In the past couple of years, sellers haven't been interviewing agents because it's been fairly easy to sell, but now that the market has shifted, interviewing several agents has become a must. To help you with this, here are the top three questions you should ask agents during interviews:

1. What's your real estate experience? Ask not how many years they've been in the business, but how many homes they sell per year. Some agents have been in the business for 25 to 30 years, but only sell two or three houses a year, while some newer agents have sold more homes. You should work with an agent who sells many more units because they are more up-to-date on what's happening.

2. How are you going to communicate? One of the biggest complaints I’ve heard from sellers is that they never heard from their agents after hiring them. Make sure that they give you guarantees on how often they communicate with you and how they’ll do so, whether it's a phone call, a text, or an email. We suggest they do it based on your preferred method. On our team, we have a feedback and communication guarantee. For every week that goes by that you don't hear from us, we give you a discount on the commission, which never happens because we follow up every day.

"Make sure to ask how often they communicate with you and how they’ll do so."

3. How long is the listing contract? Sometimes agents don't have a choice; their brokerage dictates how long they have to choose for listing the contract. At other times, the agent chooses but then says that the brokerage is making them choose. Our team is very fortunate with our brokerage. We get to set the standard for the timeframe of our contract. If you're not happy with the level of service that we give you, you can send us an email, and within 24 hours we'll release you from the contract with no cost and no obligation. Also, a real estate contract is not allowed to be longer than a year. Make sure that you can get out of the contract if the real estate agent is not performing, and that they release the home back to you so that you can relist with somebody else the very next day.

These are just some of the important questions to ask an agent when interviewing them. If you're buying a home, it's also important that you interview agents because you'll spend a lot of time with them and they’ll help you make one of the biggest financial decisions of your life. If you would like a complete list of questions that you should be asking your agents, call or email us, and we would be happy to send that to you.