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- What Are Netting Escrows & How Does It Work?: The Best Guide - January 2, 2024
- The Secret About Prescriptive Easement: Top Guide 1 Must Know - December 4, 2023
- About Home Equity Loans In Texas And How Can One Obtain It - November 27, 2023
List Of Questions to Ask a Realtor
When you are selling the house, it is prevalent to have realtors coming to your home, and your interview maybe two or three of them.
One might feel the need to do it because you are going to pay them a commission to sell your house. But when we are buying a home, we tend to go with the first realtor that we meet.
Maybe you just met them in an open house, or some family or friend recommended. You meet them and start looking at the houses without interviewing them.
In today’s post, we will learn the questions to ask realtors when you are interviewing them.
If any realtor is not having a consultation, you might want to consider working with a different realtor.
Even if you are consulting a realtor, it is just not for educational reasons. Yes, you might not have enough information about buying a house, but you can always use the opportunity to interview realtors.
And ask them some hard-hitting questions, which we will discuss below. And depending on how they answer, should give you a good indication if the realtor is fit for the job.
1. Does Your Realtor Works Full-Time or Part-Time
The first question to ask realtors is whether he or she is working full-time or part-time as a real estate agent.
For a lot of these questions that you ask, the realtors would know what the right thing to say is, but really look out for the answers.
You need to understand that all these questions that you ask should be entirely satisfactory to you.
You can follow up on this question with what led them into the realtor business? Ask about their work history.
You may want to work with a full-time realtor; that way, they have your full attention at any given point.
2. Is Your Realtor A Good Communicator?
The next question to ask a real estate agent is if he or she is good at communicating.
And follow up by asking what would be one thing that the realtor can improve with his or her communication. A lot of realtors are not very good with communication, which could include not replying to texts, emails, or calls.
If you text someone in the morning and you get a reply from them maybe in the middle of the day or late afternoon, it’s not that big of a deal.
However, if you call someone and you don’t receive a call back until two days later, there is a clear issue of communication. The best question to ask a realtor is, what is the best form of communication with him.
Whether they prefer email, call, or text for faster and convenient results.
Especially when you are in the escrow process, and you need to have some important information about it on high priority, there is nothing worse than being in the middle of a serious negotiation and not being in the loop about anything.
3. Why Hire Your Real Estate Agent Services
The third question to ask a real estate agent is, why should I hire you? This is one of the most important questions that you need to ask the realtor.
It is really a good indication to get into the mindset of the realtor.
The answer to this question, you should be looking out for is not necessarily anything in particular, but hopefully, at that point, they go ahead about their passion for their job.
You may want to look for an answer that you can relate to and which makes complete sense. Your real estate agent should be the person that you trust the most in the entire real estate transaction.
So if you like the answer to these questions you would probably end up working with that realtor.
4. How Is Your Realtor Planning The Negotiations
The fourth question to ask a realtor is, how is your realtor going to handle the negotiation part of your real estate transaction? There are three main negotiations that you do in your real estate purchase.
Your initial offer, your property inspections, and your property appraisals.
- In the initial offer, you more or less get the house under contract. The sales contract shows the price of the home that you agree upon, which made you get your offer accepted.
- The inspections are going to come with negotiations.
- The primary source of negotiation transaction is the appraisal. That means if the appraisal comes at the value which is mentioned in the sales contract, then you are buying the house for the price that is worth it, and there is nothing to negotiate. But if the appraisal comes in undervalue to that of the sales contract, then this is where you would need a good realtor with excellent negotiation skills.
Best follow up questions would be: How are you going to handle a bad inspection? How are you going to handle a low appraisal? Or, how are you going to handle multiple offer situations?
5. What Is Your Realtor’s Primary Focus?
The fifth question to ask the real estate agent is what is his primary source of business/clientele is? This is a piggybacking of question number three, which is, why should I hire you?
So what is the realtor’s primary focus, what lets you move forward in this business, what are your plans for the business in the future? This is going to give you a good source of what this business is about.
Conclusion
You want to look out for a realtor who is aware of your interest. You don’t want to hire a realtor who is going to freeze up when something goes wrong.
An excellent realtor knows how to handle the bumps in the road and turn the negative into positive. After asking these five questions, you are going to get a clear picture of the person that is in front of you.
Even after you ask these five questions, there is still a possibility that you might end up getting a realtor who is not of your interest. You would see multiple red flags pointing towards the same when you ask these questions to the realtor.
You made a good point that it’s best to look for a realtor with good communication skills. I’m interested in looking for one soon because I’d like to be able to own a vacation home someday. I think that having a place in the countryside to retreat to from time to time will help a lot whenever I’d like to clear off my mind for a little while.