When the time comes to sell your home, you’ll want to enlist the help of a local real estate agent. However, you won’t want to simply hire the first one you come across. Instead, finding the right professional to list your home will require some research and scrutinization.
Today, there are over 70,000 registered real estate agents with TRREB (Toronto Regional Real Estate Board). Toronto. While this means sellers have a vast range of available support, it can also make the process of finding the right professional for the job more complex.
In this blog post, we will help you navigate the process of interviewing a real estate agent before hiring them to sell your home.
The Importance of Selectivity
Despite Toronto real estate’s long-standing reputation of being hyperactive and seller-favouring, selling a property quickly and for top dollar is far from guaranteed. In order to optimize the outcome of your sale, you’ll need to partner with an experienced, high-performing agent who has the right strategies and expertise to guide you toward a great result.
As a seller, your real estate agent will directly influence every aspect of your sale – from the timeline to the final sale price, closing, and everything in between.
If you’re not careful about who you choose to work with, you won’t be getting the best result when you head to the market. Therefore, you’ll want to be mindful and selective when hiring an agent.
Seeking more insights about the advanced processes of selling a home? Consider these other blog posts.
Key Questions
Here are a few questions to ask an agent as you interview them.
How Long Have You Been in Business?
Real estate in Toronto has witnessed tremendous change over the past decade. As a result, many newer agents may be unfamiliar or under-experienced with the market conditions of today.
Your agent’s process and approach will be informed by their years of professional experience. The more years of experience an agent has, the wider range of market conditions they will be familiar with.
How Many Homes Have You Sold in the Past Year?
Agent performance is critically important. When you speak to a potential agent, you will want to know how many transactions they’ve closed over the past 12 months.
While there are over 70,000 on TRREB, less than 20% of them sold more than 5 homes in 2022. If an agent has a strong track record of sales in today’s market, it can lend credibility to their specific selling process.
How Experienced Are You With My Neighbourhood or Community?
There are over 140 neighbourhoods in Toronto, each with its own micro market and local trends. When it comes to pricing, preparing, and marketing your home – in addition to the negotiations process, local knowledge is absolutely critical. Therefore, you will want to know how familiar an agent is with your specific community. How long have they worked in the area?
How Would You Prepare My Home For Listing?
Pre-market preparations are one the most important aspects of your sale. During this process, an agent can help you make strategic optimizations to elevate your home above others on the market.
In addition to an agent’s specific strategies, you will want to verify what portion of the preparation process they will coordinate and undertake and how long have they worked with the service provides that they’re recommending. While many agents can make recommendations about value-adding preparations, not everyone will be able to manage and execute them on your behalf.
How Would You Market My Home?
A strong marketing strategy is vital to attract potential buyers to your property. Inquire about the real estate agent’s marketing approach, including their plans for promoting your home using both traditional and digital marketing methods.
What Are Your Differentiators?
Lastly, provide the agent with an opportunity to speak on what sets them apart from other real estate professionals. Do they have specialized areas of expertise, unique service offerings or anything else that may give your home a competitive edge on the market?
Undertaking Additional Research
While speaking with an agent face-to-face will give you a strong idea of how their experience, approach to selling, and values may suit your goals, it is also helpful to hear from past clients about their experience.
As part of your due diligence, take time to read available testimonials or online reviews about the agent. This can help you get a better idea of their service, professionalism, and ability to live up to their promises. Should you see something that concerns you, follow up with the agent and ask how they’ve rectified or resolved a particularly poor review or testimonial.
Selling With Ramsay Group
In a city with over 70,000 agents, Ramsay Group has placed in the top 1% of sales every year since 2014. We have the experience, knowledge, and proven systems to help you achieve your real estate goals quickly.
Our top priority is to get you the highest possible return on your investment without disrupting your day-to-day schedule. With specialized property management expertise, we’re able to coordinate, plan, and execute every element of your sale from start to finish.
We stand by our full-service approach and would be happy to speak with you about how we can help you exceed your selling goals.
Looking for a seamless, full-service home sale with impeccable results? Ramsay Group can guide you there. Click here to send us an email, or reach us by phone at 416.906.8366.
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