David Rathgeber's

9 Critical Factors
in Agent Selection

Ranked in order of importance:

1. You need a full-time agent you trust. Ideally, someone you know or someone who comes highly recommended by a trusted friend. With trust, you won't need to worry about any hidden agenda when the going gets tough!
   
   
2. The number of years of experience is important as well as the number of recent transactions. A lot of things can go wrong in a real estate transaction and experience is critical.
   
   
3. Communication skills. Your agent must know what to say, how to say it, what not to say, and when not to say it in all verbal, written, and electronic communications.
   
   
4. Negotiating expertise is absolutely essential to your success. Sellers need an agent who will promote multiple offers and maximize their bottom line. Buyers need an agent to help them win their first-choice home when other buyers suddenly appear.
   
   
5. Availability. Your agent should be readily available by phone, email, and text. For buyers, this can be the difference between winning your home of choice or living in your second-choice home forever. Don't settle for an assistant.
   
   
6. Computer literacy. For sellers: Your agent must think like a computer in order to maximize the number of times your home comes up in searches. And when it does, the information needs to scream, "Come visit me." (See $elling . . . Appendix D.)
   For buyers: Finding the right home is rarely easy. No doubt you will search online, but often the results you get are not the results you think you get. (See Buying . . . Appendix N.)
   
   
7. Your agent needs current market knowledge that comes from working with both buyers and sellers over a wide area and price range along with the ability to separate actionable information from mindless prattle. This is especially important in pricing your home to sell and is critical in setting the pace of negotiations for buyers.
   
   
8. An agent who is numerate and uses the appraisal method to determine a home's market value. Buyers and sellers should focus on how a home's value is determined rather than on the result! Click for details.
   
   
9. Be sure your agent uses an electronic SentriLock lockbox, which records data for every entry. It costs about six times as much as a combination lockbox.

Also important: Click this link and learn how to avoid 12 common Agent Interviewing Mistakes!

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AFiRE — Licensed broker in Florida and Virginia
A Friend in Real Estate, LLC



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