Questions to ask to select the right agent

Today I wanted to talk to you about selecting the right agent this is particularly important in a challenging market where there are fewer buyers and fewer transactions actually completing. Many vendors or sellers will select an agent based on two factors – one the price that that agent told them that they could potentially achieve and 2 the commission that they’re going to pay that agent for their role.

Ironically sellers don’t typically have a very favorable perception of agents because they don’t see a lot of value in that role and the way the traditional high street model is structured you could understand why because most agents are actually employees of the high street agency and they often seek a strategy of
taking on many listings with the goal of selling a fraction of them.

We think that the more important criteria to select an agent on is based on an agent that’s going to proactively work to get your home sold and when you’re working with, say, of bespoke agents such as myself who works for themselves who only makes money if I achieve your goal of selling your property, that gives me pretty good incentive to actually get that job done and how does that get done?  We are actually proactively marketing your property not just relying on the traditional model of putting it on the portals and being reactive and hoping buyers will contact me but it’s really about proactively creating a marketing strategy specific to understanding how your home compares to other homes on the market. Why? Because that’s how buyers are also going to look at your home and perceive value and it’s about exposing your home to the widest possible audience because the more potential buyers that we can attract the more competition we can generate and keep you in control of that sales process and have choice of potential buyers looking  at your home and making that offer.

The other key criteria is negotiating strongly on your behalf, it’s basically defending that property and selling the best features of it understanding buyers as well and making sure we’re pre-screening them accordingly such that we can command and defend and negotiate strongly with the goal ultimately to achieve for you the best possible net price in your pocket as a vendor that the market will bear. So if a good agent is doing those things it’ll achieve that result so we think that those are the criteria that more vendors should be having a conversation about – a bespoke marketing strategy, the enthusiasm and proactive exposure that the agent’s going to bring, and their ability to negotiate strongly on their behalf and being incentivized to do so.

I welcome that conversation I’m very happy to talk to anybody who’s thinking about selling and actually more important perhaps a seller who’s actually had a property on the market for a while that hasn’t sold and really creating that understanding the market and reanalyzing to create that bespoke marketing strategy. So if that’s you please do get in touch.