Agent Selection Guide

The Biggest Mistake A Homeowner Can Make When Interviewing Agents

Most homeowners have absolutely no idea what criteria they should be utilizing when choosing the best Realtor to sell their house. They have no pre-determined questions to be used during an interview and they have no qualifying standards to decide which agents are even qualified to sell their property correctly. Most home sellers admit that they don’t know how to choose an agent.

These homeowners are hoping for “promises” from a salesperson that may or may not actually become true. As an example, many uneducated home sellers will simply interview 2 or 3 agents and go with the one that says they can sell it for the most amount of money, with the lowest commission charged. This almost ALWAYS ends in disaster. More on that later.

If you are selling your home, it’s one of the most important financial decisions of your entire life. It’s crucial to have a pre-determined set of questions and qualifications you can use during the interview to choose the best agent for the job. You certainly don’t want to mess up something this big in your life by choosing an agent based on their personality or a low commission. Frankly, if they can’t negotiate for themselves, they certainly won’t have the ability to negotiate for you. This means you may end up with a very low sale price. And if their sales success percentage is low on the listings that they represent, your home may not sell at all.

On the following pages, you’ll find a list of the selection factors to consider as you weigh each agent against each other to ensure that your home sells quickly, sells correctly and sells for the highest amount of net profit with little hassle.

Selection Factors For Real Estate Agents

1. Agent must have a tremendous multi-media marketing campaign which attracts thousands of home buyers to my property.

2. Agent must be able to demonstrate how they can make my home stand out above all other homes for sale in this area.

3. Agent must be able to successfully launch a promoted mega open house to guarantee over 10 Buyers will visit my home within 48 hours.

4. During our meeting, the agent should be prepared to show me their complete list of “Buyers In Waiting” for homes like mine.

5. Agent must have a complete marketing agenda to showcase home on a “Secret List of Unlisted Properties” at least 24 hours before we list.

6. Agent must willingly offer a specific performance guarantee that shows me they will sell the home quickly & for top dollar or they are penalized.

7. Agent must demonstrate that they have a huge campaign in place for move-up & move-down buyers that may want to buy my home.

8. Agent must be able to show me that they are investing thousands of dollars of their own money every month in marketing & promotion.

9. Agent must be able to demonstrate their system for automatically following up with every single buyer lead that comes in for my property.

10. Agent must be a full-time Realtor and be able to demonstrate RECENT and CONSISTENT sales in Chester County and surrounding counties.

11. Agent should demonstrate their complete marketing plan including online and offline promotions that will happen with my home.

12. Agent must be able to demonstrate their #1 most appealing offer that attracts dozens of buyers to them like a magnet.

The 10 Key Questions To Ask Agents During The Interview

The following questions are absolutely critical to the successful sale of your home. If the Realtor doesn’t qualify on all of these questions, it may drastically increase the chances of your home not selling at all or worse, selling for a final price that is much lower than you originally listed for.

1. How long have you been a full time licensed real estate agent? (min. 10 years)

2. How many home buyers are you currently working with in our market area and can you show me information on them? (min. 8 buyers)

3. What is your exact list price to sales price ratio and can you show me that in writing? (min. 99.1% of asking price)

4. Do you have a performance guarantee with penalty to agent if not met?

5. How many times have you completed a multiple Bidder home sale in our market and what is your average number of offers recieved?

6. How many people are on your team? What marketing do you outsource and what services do you utilize for massive marketing campaigns?

7. How many ads have you ran using online Marketing, and/or other social media marketing sites within the past 24 hours?

8. Do you promote a “Secret List of Unlisted Homes” and if so, how many qualified buyers can you present my home to the evening before we hit the active market?

9. Do you update your clients on the sale of their home at the same day and time every week? Which day and time do you do that?

10. What empirical data do you have to justify the recommended price?

Facts About Selling Your Home

FACT: According to many industry experts, one of the biggest reasons a homeowner doesn’t sell their home for their desired price or within an acceptable timeframe comes down to the agent they hire for the job. Selecting a “discount” real estate agent may cause you to sell for far less than the homes are selling for in the immediate area, if you eventually sell at all. If the agent you select plans to simply take some photos, put a sign in the yard, advertise it on a few websites and hold an open house, frankly you can do that yourself and experience the miserable results it creates. Why would you pay someone to do that? A good question to ask the agents you interview is “What can you do to sell my home that I can’t do on my own?” If they don’t have several good answers to that, they aren’t worth ANY fee. You get what you pay for and if you aren’t going with a full service marketing professional; it may cost you tens of thousands of dollars as well as months and months of stress and disbelief as to what’s happening with your home.

FACT: An agent must understand the art and science behind pricing a home correctly. This has changed drastically over the past 5 years. As an example, pricing a home at $249,900 does not look “cheaper” than $250,000. It simply eliminates virtually HALF of the buyers that would be looking for a home like yours online. If their search criteria is $225,000 to $250,000 your home will be in that list. If they choose $250,000 to $275,000 you do NOT come up in that search. Only an agent operating in the ignorance of the 90’s would price a home at a number that would eliminate 50% of your desired buyers instead of pricing it at an even number. This is a great test to see if your agent understands today’s marketing world. If they don’t, you should remove them from your home immediately.

FACT: Listing your home at an unrealistically high price will nearly ALWAYS result in a sale price that is far below the area average comparable sales. When a home is priced above the competition (even if only $3,000) it will oftentimes sit for months and months generating “lowball” offers. And frankly, even if you could get a buyer to agree to pay what you are asking, if there are no sales within one mile that are comparable, the home won’t appraise that high and the contract is dead. The buyer can’t get financed. A few years ago you could get it to appraise higher than the area sales. Unfortunately all of those appraisers are in prison now so your home will not be able to sell for more than the comparable sales per appraisal guidelines.

The Biggest Reasons To Try To Convince Josh Rorke

To Accept Your Property Listing

SELL YOUR HOME FAST:

Josh and his team of professionals are all working on the sale of your home together, rather than simply a lone agent trying to do it on their own. In hot markets and slow markets, our homes are selling faster than the national average and we many times end up with multiple offers on our listings, driving the sale price ABOVE the offering price. Selling your home quickly will allow you to make your housing transition under your terms and most importantly, net a higher sales price. Trying to pinch pennies by hiring someone that’s “cheap” may cause you to have your home listed for over 6 months, ultimately getting an offer at 15% to 20% under the value you originally wanted. This is tens of thousands of dollars to your bottom line. Speed of sale is critical to your home sale success.

SELL YOUR HOME FOR TOP DOLLAR:

The only thing that affects value on any given object is supply and demand. An agent that can demonstrate a huge supply of ready, willing and able buyers can increase the demand on your home. This may ultimately drive up the final sales price of your home by $10,000 to $15,000 more. The net profit you’ll end up with once your sale is completed will be directly affected by the quality of the agent that is marketing your property.

SELL YOUR HOME WITH LESS HASSLE:

Let’s face it. Selling a home is one of the most complex transactions you’ll experience. With all of the forms, disclosures, disclaimers and contracts, this takes a professional that handles home sales on a regular basis. Selling your home quickly will eliminate the inconvenience and hassle of preparing your home for showings day after day, week after week and month after month. Less hassle actually comes down to getting TOP dollar with FAST home sales. Only the best agent will do.

So What Happens Next?

If you feel like you may be a good fit with us and you’d like to sell your home fast and for top dollar, simply call us at (610)-733-6199. After a brief phone consultation, if it feels like a fit for us, we will arrange for an appointment where all of your questions can be answered, your home evaluated and if we accept your listing, the agreement can be reviewed and approved by both parties. Most importantly, we can consider timing, pricing and marketability to ensure that moving forward would be in the best interest of your family’s immediate housing goals.

Please Do NOT Call Josh If…

If you are planning to interview dozens of different agents and choose someone because they promise you millions of dollars or low fees, you needn’t bother calling our office. We do not participate in such auditions or interviews. You should only call when you’ve made the decision to try to retain Josh Rorke’s representation on your home. Interviewing a couple of other agents will usually bring you to that realization very quickly.

We are more than happy to meet with you with absolutely no obligation on your part or ours. This is a good time to answer any of your questions, demonstrate how we can net you a MUCH higher figure on your home sale than any other agent and of course provide our own “Realtor Appraisal” for the true value of your home when using a superb marketing plan. We’d simply schedule a no obligation, in-home meeting to take a look at the home and discuss several different options for you. But we simply do not have the time to meet with uncommitted home sellers or “agent shoppers”. As an advanced warning, some weeks will prove to have a waiting list for an appointment and we’re unable to schedule the first meeting immediately. Plan accordingly. If you do plan to shop agents, please do so before calling us. You can simply use this Agent Selection Guide to ensure you’re hiring an agent that’s qualified to sell your home fast & for top dollar.

One Other Important Notice

If you are ready to get your home sold now, you will obviously take immediate action to schedule the first interview. But even if you are reading this Agent Selection Guide several months before you are planning to sell, it is appropriate to meet NOW, not later. We have a special “HEAD START PROGRAM” to ensure that your home is ready to sell when the time comes and that it will be up to standards that we can accept the listing and sell it quickly. The Head Start Program is a very popular free consultation for those that plan to sell within the next 6 months and they’d like plenty of time to plan accordingly.

When

Team Is Assembled Including Marketing Dept., Copywriters, Online & Offline Specialists, Printers

Using the Targeted Marketing Approach, all Custom Materials are Created Marketing Broadcast Goes Out to TARGETED Buyers in Waiting

Affluent Mailing List Purchased to Launch Targeted Marketing Mail Campaign

Combo of Online & Offline Techniques Utilized To Specifically Target The Most Opportune Buyers

Invitation Only Home Preview Event Scheduled and Planned