When you sell your home, you may be signed up with a REALTOR® for months. In fact, your relationship with your REALTOR®  may be longer than some of the relationships you've been in! 

Not liking your REALTOR® will make these months feel like years.

No major business would hire for this type of position without seeing what the market has to offer, so why should you? You want the person selling your house to be a quality salesperson, and the easiest way to determine which agent has higher value is to interview them. 

Preparation is what leads to success, and having three interviews with possible candidates up front will save you from having your house listed three different times before it sells.

Imagine…

• You expect to hear from your agent regularly, but haven't heard from them since they listed your home;

• You were ready for magazine-worthy photos of your house, but ended up with crime-scene photos;

• You were seeing other SOLD signs go up in your neighbourhood, and you are left to wonder if your home will get an offer at all.

If you don't want this to happen with the sale of your home... It's time to interview agents.

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“If you are looking for a superior experience in Realty, you should really try Anthony de Sousa with Hack & Co at Remax River City. Anthony guided us through the sales and purchase process and made our lives so much easier. What a great experience when your realtor is on the same page, prepared, and one step ahead when needed. I couldn’t have asked for a better over all experience. Thank you to the Hack & Co team for assisting Anthony to make our lives so much easier through this process.”

— Sean McConnell, Google Reviews

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How to Hire a Pro - Like a Pro

We asked our team of REALTORS® how they would hire a REALTOR® themselves. These four steps will prevent regret down the road.

1. Choose Your Candidates

You can find REALTORS® anywhere. You probably have a few friends from high school who got their Real Estate License, or maybe someone you work with is a real estate agent in their spare time. 

If you want quality service, these are usually not the candidates you want to go with. Mediocre REALTORS® are a dime a dozen, and you don't want to go through a dozen REALTORS® to sell your home.  

A great way to find candidates is to look online-- search reviews, shout out on social media asking your friends who they've had great experiences with, or look for great online marketing of listings. 

Ideally you should have three candidates picked out. Interviewing two candidates will simply show you the contrast between your options, but interviewing three will give you a sense of the average between them.

2. Do Your Homework

Once you find promising candidates, start looking deeper into their website and social media pages. 

• Look at their reviews and biographies. Have they gotten good recent reviews? Is their bio updated? What you're looking for here is to see if they are still as good, and are still doing the things that developed their reputation in the first place.

• Look at the listings that they carry. Do they have a lot of active listings?  What do their representations of listings look like? Take a close look at their listings and ask yourself if you would be proud to have a listing with them.

• Look for a brand. Are they affiliated with a national or international brand? This is a good indication of the type of network they have.  

Once you have your three promising candidates, set up your meetings making sure that your last meeting is your strongest candidate. This will give you two interviews of experience to craft the best questions for your top choice.

3. Interview Like Your House Depended On It

When they arrive, allow them to conduct the meeting. If you let them go through the process that they normally follow and save your questions for the end, it will give you an idea of what the REALTOR® does without being prompted. This is a good indicator of their approach to selling houses.

4. Ask Your Questions

Most REALTORS® interview well-- they're sales people. What you want to do is ask them some questions that they are not prepared for, but should be able to answer. Here are some questions we feel will separate the masters from the apprentices. 

Note: #10 is the best closer!

1. How many houses do you sell every year? 

2. What is your average ratio between listing price and selling price? This question assesses their ability to price homes correctly from Day 1 as well as their negotiating skills. 

3. Can you tell me about your sales statistics compared to the market?

4. What can you tell me about your marketing approach?

5. Based on the information you have on my home, what are your expectations for how many showings per week I would get? What would be normal showings traffic?

6. What happens if your marketing brings a buyer? Do you show the house yourself?

7. If our home sale is not going smoothly, what is your plan?

8. What kind of support staff or resources do you have at your disposal? 

9. What will you do to help me prepare my home for sale?

10. Why should you be my REALTOR®? 

When you ask the questions, be sure to grid the answers! There are going to be a few things that come up in conversation, and by gridding the answers you will be able to grade them as positive, neutral, or negative. By the time you're done with all three, you should be able to see who is the best choice for you!

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Feel free to download our Interview Template available with or without the questions we have provided!

Interview Template With Questions

This template already has our questions set up for you!

Interview Template Without Questions

If you don’t want to use our questions, go ahead and write in your own!

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Think the agent you had in mind is awesome?

See how they compare against a HACK&Co Teammate.

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