Before we start — most REALTORS are professionals. I have rarely met someone that is a REALTOR (not just an agent) that is not actively trying to improve and learn more. As with all industries — there are a few bad apples. How do we sift through them?
- Can you trust the reviews?
I bet you’re a bit like me — you probably look at reviews and awards before making almost any purchasing decision. I do it every day for decisions on restaurants, movies, technology purchases, and more.
Reviews from regular folks help us cut through some of the marketing we are all exposed to each day. But should they?
There are many services available to help pad reviews for agents. For a fee — an agent can have bad reviews removed and good reviews added in their place. While not a common practice in the industry — it does happen. Selective an agent to help with one of your largest assets based on what could be a faked review may not make the most sense. (or cents.)
2. What about sales volume? An agent has sold 250 homes in my area this year alone…doesn’t that say something?
2 questions:
a. Is there a chance an agent could be too busy to give you the qualty of service you deserve? Will you be given a custom tailored experience that truly serves you in the best way possible or might you just be run through a mill as quickly as possible?
b. There may be some deception with the numbers here. Many brokers in my market have several agents and require those agents to sell homes only under the broker’s name. The result is that the broker looks like she is dominating the market but in reality it’s a team of 20 people pooling that have somehow been convinced to give only the broker credit for their sales. I’m not saying this is flat out untruthful — but most consumers have no idea how sales get reported and that agents do this. If you think someone in your area is actually selling 350 homes per year I’d encourage you to look closer. From my experience — this is impossible and it’s really a team of people pooling sales results to try and simulate market share.
3. Experience/time in the industry must mean something right?
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Short answer. No. Here’s why: many agents are in real estate as a side gig. They have full time jobs elsewhere and may conduct 0–1 transactions per year. By the way — side note — did you know the average agent in Texas only sells 4 homes per year?
Time in the industry is pretty meaningless. Sometimes time can actually be a bad thing. I think most agents have run across a few folks who have been “doing this for 30 years” and think that they are correct on all things real estate related. As a moderator of an amazing real estate Facebook group I run across this a lot. You’d be amazed at the amount of agents that do the bare minimum in education because they think they know it all already…only to quickly find out from a moderator that not only are they wrong…but potentially lawsuit worthy wrong.
So how do I find the right agent?
EDUCATION MATTERS
1 simple search will tell you if an agent is worth your time. Look at their education record. This record is made public in Texas and easily searched by going here: https://www.trec.texas.gov/apps/license-holder-search/index.php?lic_name=&lic_hp=&industry=Real+Estate
You can also just look up your state followed by “real estate agent licensee lookup”.
The second way to find out about their education is to view their Realtor.com profile. You can do this by typing in their name followed by “realtor.com” Scroll down to Credentials and see how many icons are present. If you click on the icon or hover over it you can see what it is and how it helps you.
Here’s an example:
Would you go to a doctor that took the least amount of classes required to become one? Me neither.
Agents that take their education seriously are almost always amazing agents.
If you can’t find a highly educated real estate agent in your area — please reach out. My company’s mission statement is to Bless Others Through Real Estate and I take that seriously. I will help you find the right agent to take care of you. Just visit www.ToddSellsTexas.com and message me.
