Cindy_Tay
Joined: 18 Aug 2006
Posts: 6555
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| ~ How to find a qualified Property Agent ? |
 28 Aug 07 6:24 pm |
After making a decision that its time to sell a house, we may be thinking of engaging the help of a property agent in the marketing of the house. Of course, you may be wondering what you should look for or what you should set as criteria when choosing a property agent. Engaging an agent that is capable of doing the job for you will determine if you have a pleasurable/smooth transaction of your house or one that you rather forget. You may use the following pointers as a guide in selecting your property agent:
Check out the company the agent represents
Make a check on the company that the agent represents. This is because companies that are well established usually provide better training and better customer service support compared to companies that are not as well established. Therefore agents from a reputable company can give you more assurance on the agent's training and quality. Imagine how you would feel if you engage an agent representing a company that you have not heard of (or you cannot even find any information on the company)?
Knowledge and experience
Knowledge is one of the many important keys of professionalism. As selling your house is a major decision, you would definitely like it to be handled by a professional agent. Especially in real estate transactions, which are usually multifaceted, it demands the marketing agent to have a wide ranging knowledge from local real estate laws to financial knowledge. Thus, it is crucial that the agent you engage should have sufficient knowledge to handle your transaction. In the selection of your agent, you can enquire about his experience, real estate educational background and his knowledge about the current market before engaging him.
Select an agent who has time for you
There is always a limit to how many houses an agent can handle/sell at any point of time. The truth is, to market each house well, the agent need to put in sufficient amount of time and effort. Imagine an agent having too many houses/listings to handle; he may have difficulty recalling the details of each of the listings when buyers call up to enquire. Or he may not have enough time to go through thoroughly each listing and foresee potential problems. Agents that work on too many listings will inevitably spread themselves too thin, ending up neglecting certain listings or certain aspects of selling. This may result in increasing your risk of facing extra problems or incurring unnecessary expenses. Thus, choose an agent who has time for you and one that can give you his personal attention and quality service. Choose an agent that is able to update you regularly on the marketing of your house, changes in the housing laws, competitor's prices etc.
Cheap is not always the best
Cheap service does not necessary means quality service. Sellers sometimes think that whichever agent charges the lowest is the best. In most instances, it is usually the opposite. There is no point engaging an agent that charge the cheapest rate but cannot deliver. You may end up selling at a price lower than the market price or not having a smooth transaction. As sellers, you definitely want the best selling price but more importantly, you want the transaction to go through smoothly. Experienced and responsible agents put in substantial effort for their home sellers. Therefore it will be fair and normal for them to ask for what they deserve. Compared to one that is not putting in 100% of his commitment, he could charge less.
If you pay peanuts, you get monkey
Ask yourself, why people are willing to pay more for a specialist consultation? The key is to find an agent that can deliver the service you wanted and not one that charges the cheapest. |
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