Shortchanged by Shortcuts? More than anything else they say during your interview, these numbers are their “track record.” It’s what you can use to gauge how effectively they do their job. Key Point: While past performance doesn’t guarantee future performance and every home sale presents a unique situation, if you’re expecting a Realtor whose past performance is below average to suddenly get you more money for your home than average, you need to explain to me how that’s going to work.
It’s possible, and maybe even likely, that the Realtor you’re interviewing might not know this information off hand. From one perspective, this is forgivable as we’ve already established they’re almost never asked for it, so why would they have it? At the same time, you gotta think, “Why should someone have to ask them for their performance before they’d bother to go find out what it is? What have they been using to measure their performance?” Most real estate agents know how many transactions they’ve done and the dollar volume of those transactions. That’s nice… for them! That’s how they did for themselves, not how well they did for their clients. That they know one number (transactional dollar volume) and not the other (the amount they got their clients over or under average) says a lot about where they focus their attention – on their own business rather their clients’. One possible way to get this information is to ask them to send you their last 12 months of sales right from the MLS. It’s easy for them to get and will have all the information you want. It should have the listing date, listing price, sale date, and sale price. Now you can compare days on market and list-to-sales price for each potential agent. This is a super easy way to create a level playing field for everyone you are interviewing. Be clear that every market has different conditions and different agents employ different marketing strategies. Some will What to Look For | 63
