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What to Look For | 63

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

price homes under market value to drive multiple offers and get more money. This strategy in particular might skew the results of this question in their favor.

In other words, just because Agent Bob sells homes at five percent over list price and Agent Sarah sells three percent below list price, you still don’t necessarily know the whole story. Agent Sarah could be setting the bar high and, at the end of the day, still be putting more money in the seller’s pocket even though it’s less than asking.

You’ll need to ask each agent to explain their predominant strategy, so you can get a better idea of how they’ve actually performed. However, it’s a big mistake to pretend that because agents can, and do, employ different strategies, there’s no way of comparing them. Their performance can, and must, be measured.

Question 6: Can I have three or four references to call, please?

Okay, the trick here is that you need to call people. Call their references! Seriously, pick up the phone and call them. You’re conducting interviews for a job; calling references is what you do. And yes, I understand that they’re only going to give you references of people who will speak well of them. That’s no different than any other applicant to any other job. People still call job references before hiring, and you should, too.

When you call, ask how much over (for a sale) or under (for a buy) the deal was and how many days it was on market. Ask if anything didn’t work or didn’t go well. Ask if there’s anything they regret with their transaction. Where did the agent fail to deliver? Online reviews will never tell this story. This is the most expensive, complicated transaction of your life and it requires special measures.

Online reviews are fine but actually speaking to someone who worked with the agent you’re considering is always better. It’s

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