What You Should Ask Realtors Before You Re-List Your Home !

Many of my listing happen to come from expired listings, because of that I meet a lot of homeowners that are hoping a new Realtor will get their home sold.  Let me first off by pointing out that I am going to list the questions you should be asking in order of importance ! 

1. How Many Expired Listings Have They Sold and How Did They Come Across Your Listing ? 

• How Did They Come Across Your Listing ? In my opinion if you received a piece of "bulk mail" I will usually discard it just like anyone along with the junk mail.  If you receive a piece of mail that they took the effort to hand deliver I would give them the opportunity to at least come and speak with you and about what they can do to help get your home sold. 

• How Many Expired Listings Have They Sold ?  When your hiring an agent after you have expired it is important that they understand the extra work that they will need to do.  They will run into buyers that have already seen your home and may not want to view it because it was "sitting" for so long or because a previous listing wasn't descriptive enough.  You don't want an agent who is going to re-list it just "to have their name out there", I don't take listings I can't sell.  Many times I see other agents get the listing and once it expires again the homeowners than call me for the help I tell all of my homeowners "I don't list houses, I sell houses"! 

2. What Kind Of Company Do They Work For ? 

The very first question I hear from homeowners is "What Is Your Commission?" This should actually be your LAST question, it doesn't matter what a Realtors commission rate is if they don't do what needs to be done to sell your home! 

• Is the company individually owned, or is it operated by a company ? In most cases bigger is always better because they are affiliated with other companies that can get your home sold.  You can't assume that because they have the name Century 21, Coldwell Banker, or Elliman that it will have the resources needed.  Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage is company owned and is affiliated with Coldwell Banker Mortgage, NRT Insurance & Title, & American Home Shield.  We also offer professional photography, top placement, featured branding & much more ! 

3. What Is Their Internet Presence, And How Do They Create Your Listing ?

• What do they do for online advertising ? Everyone puts their listings onto MLS, what you want to know is how many other sites will you be on. Also who will be the point of contact on each of those websites, Without having "Branding" leads for your home are sold to other Realtors

• How do you monitor your online presence ? This is another important part of your Internet presence is knowing how many times your home has actually been viewed, partnering with the top websites (Zillow, Trulia, Optimum Homes, Newsday.Com, Realtor.Com) Coldwell Banker is able to send you weekly reviews of how many people looked at your home ! We are also able to track feedback from other Realtors viewings and send it directly to you, this is also provided with the Open House Survey filled out by consumers ! 

• What do they do to create your listing ? The first impression your house gives is by its listing does the agent stage your home or use a professional photographer ? Buyers are very visual so you want to be sure that you catch their attention right away ! Making sure that your listing is complete is often overlooked things like directions, or a full description can get a buyer to actually want to come see your home ! 

4. How Available Will Your Agent Be ? 

• How available are they to your buyers ? This is a very important question to ask because how quickly an agent responds to inquiries will decide how many buyers stay interested in your home! Statistics show that 60 minutes after an inquiry is sent the chances of reaching that buyer decrease by over 50%! The best way to find out how quickly they respond place an inquiry on one of their properties before your appointment and see how quickly they respond to you ! 

• How available are they to you ? This is another question homeowners often forget to ask, you want to know how often your realtor will be following up with you to give you updates on your home, feedback from Realtors and most importantly what is going on with other homes in the area ! Realtors that have a system set up and set times to be in contact with you for these things will always keep communication less stressful ! 

5. What Is Your Home Worth ? 

• I am sure your wondering why this is at the bottom of the list, the reason why is because as long as the agent has provided you with a Comparative Market Analysis than the price of your home should not vary by very much.  If the agent has not performed an actual CMA and presented it to you, than that should make your decision a bit easier.  The one part of this you do want to make note of is what kind of pricing style they would suggest for your home and area Market Priced or Action Priced ! 

These are the most important question you should be getting the answers too, and the very last should be about commission, don't discount a company or agent because of this answer decide who you think will do the best job and get your home sold !