Real estate: 11 ways to pick the perfect sales agent for you and your home

The difference between a good selling agent and a poor one is around 10 per cent of your home’s value. So it can pay off big time to follow these 11 rules.

The difference between a good selling agent and a poor selling agent is approximately 10 per cent on the value of your home.

Not all schools are equal, not all doctors are equal, not all sports people are equal, and not all agents are equal. In real estate, the cheapest agent and the best agent are often not the same agent.

So how do you know? Let’s have a look at 11 ways you should go about selecting an agent to get top dollar for your home

Commissions

It’s unwise to save $10k in commission if it’s going cost you $100k on your sale price. Generally speaking, better agents charge a little bit more because they have a robust strategy to get you top dollar. My suggestion is that you create an incentive-based Commission Accelerator Scheme.

You need a robust sales strategy. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

Much like the bonus schemes in the workplace, you and the agent agree on a fee to commence the agreement. Let’s say they agree to sell your home for no less than $1 million at 2 per cent commission. Then, for every $100k over $1 million they sell your house, you agree to pay the agent an extra $10k. So, the more you — get the more the agent gets.

Who are you actually listing with?

Will this agent presenting to you at the appraisal be the same person managing the sale process from start to end? Or will they be handing the keys over to a young kid out of school to do the leg work? Many agents use assistants to help, but what you don’t want is to be handed over to someone who is not experienced. Make sure you ask the agent: Who will be doing the open for inspections? Who will be speaking to every buyer? Who will be negotiating the final deal?

Open house interviews

Attend open houses and interview the agent as if you’re looking to buy. What was their approach? Did they follow up promptly? Did they have great marketing material at the property? Did they have an automated technology service that gave you all the information by text as you left the property?

Open houses are a chance to interview for your own agent. Picture: Adrian William

Most importantly, did you feel you could be comfortable with this person and speak to them almost every day for a month or two? The best vendor-agent relationships don’t have to be best friends, but you need to have a partnership where everyone is on the same page.

Marketing

Two of the most valuable things an agent brings to the table is: negotiation and marketing. These are the two things that separate the best from the worst. In terms of marketing, you can go onto their websites and check out the quality of their advertising. How professional are their videos and photography? Do they use stylists? Have professional copywriters been used or has the agent got the receptionist to write out the advertisements?

Most importantly, is the marketing promoting the property, or the agent? Make sure the advertising is geared towards all the potential buyers in the marketplace. For instance, if the buyer is going to be someone that has $10m to spend, don’t just rely on social media. They are generally not on Snapchat or TikTok.

You need to attract every possible buyer. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dylan Coker

For this kind of buyer, traditional media like print still applies.

You want to make sure that you attract every buyer possible. The local buyer, the out of area buyer, the active buyer and of course, the passive buyer. Beware of the agent who says they will pay for the advertising themselves, because you probably won’t get much. Today, there are services that allow for a vendor to pay for their advertising once the property is sold, meaning you are no longer cash poor. An example of this is CampaignAgent a rapidly growing financial-tech product that allows you to advertise now and pay later.

Reviews

We now have multiple platforms that allow people to do a digital interview on an agent. The most popular platforms are realestate.com.au, RateMyAgent and Google and Facebook. Type your agent’s name out on those platforms and find out what others are saying about the agent(s) you want to hire.

Facebook interviews

This is a wonderful way to really work out what the agent is all about. Are they a professional serving the community and taking their job seriously, or do their social media posts show them partying every Friday night? Your agent needs to be energised and mentally alert, not nursing a hangover on auction day or at open homes.

Ask the agent to provide you the names and numbers of the last five sellers they’ve hadPicture: NCA NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

Bigger is not always better

It can be attractive to list with the agent who has majority of the market share (the one who has the most listings and signboards). But you don’t necessarily want an agent who sells the most homes, you want an agent that sells your home the most.

What you don’t want is to be treated just like another commodity in a cookie-cutter approach. Ask the agent that you list with, how many other properties will they be handling at the same time?

References

Ask the agent to provide you the names and numbers of the last five sellers they’ve had. If they have nothing to hide, they will.

McGrath real estate agent Frank Bartolone pictured at an open home inspection in Bossley Park. Picture: Toby Zerna

Technology

Have you got an agent that has moved with technology? Or are they in a state of career decline? According to organisational psychologist Adam Grant, there are two main types of intelligence in the workplace: fluid and crystallised.

Fluid intelligence is basically your IQ, whereas crystallised intelligence is your acquired ability to solve problems by applying your knowledge and experience. This tends to happen as you gain more experience in your career.

So, ask your agent, do they know how to use geographic and demographic targeting on social media to help your home reach the people most likely to buy it?

Will they allow buyers to bid online or run a hybrid auction campaign? Do they have a process for electronic signatures? Do they have a process for fraud prevention when large sums of money are exchanged? Do they have a robust CRM system where buyers get notified immediately? If they haven’t evolved, you are most likely looking at a dinosaur agent with low crystallised intelligence.

Tech savvy: agent John McManus, doing an open home inspection using virtual inspections on his Instagram account. Picture: AAP Image / Julian Andrews

Over-pricing to get your listing

Beware the agent that gives you an ultra-high price. They don’t control the market and they are probably giving you false hope so they can get the listing. Put yourself in the shoes of a buyer – would you buy your house for that figure when there is competition in the market? The best an agent can do is influence the sale price, they can’t control the sale price — because the market sets the price.

Finally, beware of the ‘off-market bribe’

This is when an agent has your listing signed up but doesn’t launch your property on the market. It can be seducing to hear an agent say they can sell it to a buyer privately and will bring qualified buyers with no fuss.

Sounds great right?

But would you believe an agent who will guarantee you 30 days of sunshine in your marketing campaign? Of course not.

Tom Panos in his role as auctioneer. Picture: John Appleyard

Selling a property is no different to launching any new type of product in the market. Don’t take short cuts. Your family home is the last remaining tax haven in Australia.

Remember, the most expensive thing you can do in real estate is to put a good buyer in front of a bad agent.

Tom Panos has been a highly respected figure in the local real estate industry for three decades. He is Australia’s leading real estate coach, a sough-after auctioneer, founder of Real Estate Gym and a Sky News commentator.

Originally published as Real estate: 11 ways to pick the perfect sales agent for you and your home