When meeting your agent, take time to see if you like them in general. Are you comfortable with them? Does their personality suit you? Do they listen, and are they positive? Do they take the time to explain things to you? These are so important because if your personality clashes, communication will suffer and they will be less enthusiastic about selling your home, and this is not good.
Know what you want and make sure your real estate agent listens. There is nothing more aggravating than being taken to see 12 houses and all of them are not suitable. Have an idea in advance about age, condition, square footage, no. of baths and bedrooms, etc.
Ask your agent beforehand, what improvements you can make that may impact your homes value and asking price. My agent set our price and then had us spend a fortune on improvements after the fact. This actually took away from the profit we made. If your agent has arranged to come by to take photos, ask them if there is anything special you need to do, or have them walk through your home first before they take photos to suggest and give you a chance to change something you may have overlooked. Your home is going to be shown on websites all over, potential buyers may be turned off by the pictures and what they see in them before they even bother to view your home. A good agent should know this.
Before you commit to your real estate agent and his company, make sure you tell them that for any home you are interested in you expect to be able to make an offer on the property. If this is something they don’t do or discourage in any way, don’t sign on with them. You are the boss! Its your money. You have the pre-approval, you have the power! Our agent didn’t even give us this option and it still makes me mad to this day!
Make sure your real estate agent knows you may need more time to move, and have it written into any contract. We didn’t have a clue, and our home sold fast, little did we know that when you go to the signing, and you turn over your keys at the signing, you really have no time to move out, and in some cases the buyer can charge you rent by the day for every day it takes you to move out. My agent told us that, but did not give us the option of requesting rent from our seller for every day they made us wait after closing. You want to get all of this clear before you sign any agreement to use that real estate agent or his agency.
