How to Interview a Real Estate Agent With Great Questions (2024)

Do you want some great real estate interview questions? How to interview a Realtor is something every seller should know!

Spending the necessary time to go through the interview process with a Realtor should be one of the most critical things on anyone’s agenda when considering selling their home.

You want to find the best Realtor nearby, don’t you?

Asking intelligent real estate interview questions is critical to the interview process!

Yet many prospective home sellers do not take the time to do so. Interviewing Realtors is an essential step to your success.

Without asking real estate interview questions, you’ll usually end up with an unworthy agent.

Having been a Realtor for over thirty-eight years, I found this very eye-opening.

Many folks will contact a Real Estate agent from any number of places, including attending an open house, seeing a for sale sign in their neighborhood, getting a postcard in the mail, or maybe even some positive feedback from relatives or friends.

Understanding how to pick a real estate agent is critical to your success!

One of the most significant issues I have found is that so many consumers think that all Realtors do the same things to sell homes. This could not be further from the truth!

In most businesses, 80% of the sales are done by 20% of the people. The traditional 80/20 rule that you hear so often.

In Real Estate, it is a stunning 94% to 6% ratio! That is just an incredible statistic.

Given these figures, is there any wonder why there is so much dissatisfaction from Real Estate consumers? Getting stuck with a Realtor who does not do much business or has a great work ethic is effortless.

The Barriers to Entering the Business Are Low

Unfortunately, becoming a licensed Realtor is a straightforward task. Take and pass a Real Estate test, and you have made it. The barriers to entry shouldn’t be that easy, but unfortunately, that’s how it goes.

So, how do you avoid picking a poor Realtor to work with? Asking great Real Estate interview questions goes a long way! Trust me when I tell you these questions will make an unskilled Realtor very uncomfortable.

There is no better recommendation than a track record of success. As a home seller, you will pay a Realtor a lot to sell your home. Why not work with a professional who performs consistently and at a high level? There is a reason why some Realtors continue to be successful year after year.

In most circ*mstances, working with an exceptional agent does not cost you more than someone who doesn’t do much Real Estate business. The Realtor interview questions below will go a long way in determining whether you are hiring a pro!

Interviewing a Realtor is not something you should take lightly unless you want to increase the odds you will end up unhappy with selling your home.

Tips and Best Practices For Interviewing a Realtor

1. When interviewing a real estate agent, research their experience and track record in the industry.
2. Prepare a list of questions for the Realtor, such as their marketing strategies and local market knowledge.
3. Ask for references or testimonials from previous clients to gauge the realtor’s professionalism and client satisfaction.
4. Inquire about the Realtor’s commission structure and any additional fees associated with their services.
5. Trust your instincts and choose a Realtor who communicates effectively, listens to your needs, and demonstrates integrity throughout the interview process.

How to Choose The Right Realtors to Interview

If you don’t pick suitable real estate agents to interview, it won’t matter what questions you ask them. You will end up with the wrong agent.

The right Realtor can make a significant impact on the success of your real estate transaction. It’s essential to find someone experienced, knowledgeable, and trustworthy.

Most vital is having a track record of success. Why would you choose someone who doesn’t? They will give you confidence you’ve made the right choice.

Here are a few key factors to consider when selecting a Realtor for an interview:

Essential Qualities, Qualifications, and Background For Agents

1. Experience: Look for a Realtor who has a proven track record in the real estate industry. Experience demonstrates their expertise and ability to navigate the complexities of the market.

Consider the years they have been in the industry, the types of properties they have dealt with, and their success rate.

2. Local Market Knowledge: The real estate market can vary significantly from one location to another, so choosing a Realtor with extensive knowledge of the local market is essential.

They should be familiar with current trends, property values, and neighborhoods in the area you are interested in. This knowledge will enable them to provide you with accurate and relevant information to make informed decisions.

3. Communication and Availability: Effective communication is vital in real estate transactions. Look for a Realtor who is responsive and accessible, someone who promptly returns your calls or emails and keeps you updated throughout the process.

A readily available Realtor who communicates effectively with you will ensure a smoother and more efficient experience.

4. Professionalism and Integrity: Trust and integrity are fundamental qualities to seek in a Realtor. You want someone honest, transparent, and ethical in their dealings.

Check for any disciplinary actions or complaints against the Realtor and ask for references to validate their reputation and professionalism.

Look for positive reviews online.

5. Compatibility: Personal compatibility is often overlooked but can play a significant role in the success of your working relationship with a Realtor. You should feel comfortable discussing your needs, concerns, and goals with them.

Rapport is essential with your agent. Is there a personality match?

Look for someone who listens attentively, understands your requirements, and is willing to go the extra mile to meet yourexpectations.

Once you have chosen some excellent candidates to earn you business, this is what you should be asking.

6. Credentials: Is the agent an award winner or just another agent? If your goal is to sell for the most money in the shortest time, don’t you want someone who is a match to deliver those results?

Your expectations should match the agent you select.

How Long Have You Been a Realtor and Your Production Level

Are You A Realtor or Real Estate Agent?

Did you know there is a significant difference between a Realtor and a real estate agent? Realtors are part of the National Association of Realtors.

They take an oath to follow a code of ethics. Essentially, the code is all about doing the right thing. It’s about being a fiduciary and putting your client’s interests ahead of your own.

Trust me, many agents don’t! I’ve personally witnessed it for almost forty years in real estate. A Realtor must follow them. Real Estate agents are not required to.

I’ve been a Realtor my entire career because my business is built on integrity. My reputation and meeting my client’s goals are the most important things.

Do You Practice Dual Agency?

The answer to this question is vital. If the agent you are interviewing practices dual agency, you should either find someone else or insist they don’t.

You’ll pay the real estate agent thousands, if not tens of thousands, in commission. Do you want them to become a neutral party offering no ability to give you any advice? I doubt it!

For example, an agent won’t be able to offer guidance when an offer comes in or after the home inspection. It’s not a situation you’ll want to be in.

Unfortunately, dual agency is a conflict of interest. A home seller should never allow their agent to practice dual agency. There is a reason dual agency is banned in several states. It’s terrible for consumers.

How Long Have You Been in The Business?

Experience is beneficial but doesn’t necessarily mean that a newer agent couldn’t be a rising superstar. However, many of the other Realtor interview questions below will help determine whether the agent has the potential to be one.

Are You a Full-Time or Part-Time Agent?

There are some jobs where being part-time is acceptable. Real Estate is not one of them. It’s likely your most significant asset.

Do you want someone who is working as a shoe salesman or bartender instead of putting their full attention on selling your home?

How Many Homes Did You Sell Last Year as a Seller’s Agent?

This interview question has a high level of importance! Do you want to work with a Realtor who sells five homes a year or someone who sells 25?

Don’t be fooled by the agent who does very little business and tells you that you will get better personal service with them. That is a bunch of hogwash! There is a reason why they only sell five homes a year.

This is a critical real estate interview question that most sellers never even think to ask. You want a Realtor with a track record of success in good and bad markets. The Realtor’s prior track record is integral to picking a real estate agent you will be happy with.

What Was The Average Number of Days From The Original List Price to Accepted Offer?

This is a significant statistic because it shows how well the agent did their job from day one when they recommended an asking price to you. Don’t get caught with a Realtor who gives you an inflated value to get your business.

“Buying a listing” is a prevalent tactic agents use when competing with other Realtors. There are some areas in which professionals excel. One of them is pricing homes.

Unfortunately, others don’t know how to perform a market analysis (CMA) correctly. It’s one of the factors that lead to overpriced homes. An accurate listing price is one of the most vital factors in selling homes.

What Was The Average Ratio Between The List Price and Final Sales Price?

This question boils down to two things. Pricing the home correctly from day one and the Real Estate agent’s negotiating skills. Choose a Realtor who cares more about your pocketbook than theirs.

Negotiation skills are essential.

What Kind of Market Share Do You and Your Company Have?

When you interview Realtors, ask this question and get proof. This is not necessarily as critical, but you should at least be working with someone who has some working knowledge of the town and has previously sold other homes.

It is an excellent method to ensure you have a team of professionals working on your behalf.

If you can pick one of the best real estate companies and have a top agent, then all the better.

Personal Service and Testimonials Are Essential

Do You Have an Administrator or Personal Assistant?

Busy Realtors can have a hard time doing everything well on their own. When a Realtor invests in their business to hire a personal assistant, you know they care about personal service. A Realtor can’t be in two places at once.

The best Realtors will have a transaction coordinator. Transaction coordinators do many things for buyers and sellers to make a real estate transaction successful.

A helping hand and great teamwork speak volumes about a skilled agent. During your interview, ask the agent about their support staff and determine how you will interact with them.

Assistants are not bad, but you want to ensure your main interactions will be with your agent.

Can You Provide Me With at Least Three Recent References?

A good Realtor should be able to provide you with references that you can get in touch with. Of course, every real estate agent will want to provide you with a hand-picked list of people they know will say wonderful things about them.

Instead, ask the Realtor for the last three homes they sold, look up the owner’s names, and call them yourself. This will give you a better understanding of the client’s satisfaction level.

Don’t tell the agent you will call, though, as you don’t want them prepping the person.

What is Your Online Marketing and Advertising?

The Internet is Critical to Home Sales, so How Will You Market My Home Online?

This is probably one of the most necessary interview questions you ask the Realtor! You want to align yourself with a Realtor who understands online and social media marketing. More than 90% of all buyers find their homes online.

The Realtor you choose should be marketing your home EVERYWHERE! There should be a defined marketing strategy they will present to you.

An excellent listing agent will show you precisely how they will market your property. There should be a plan and details provided.

Do You Have A Website For Marketing Homes?

A fantastic agent will have a personal website and not rely on the company to market their listings. The agent’s website should also be well-optimized to come up for searches in the city or town where you live.

This is an essential consideration when hiring a Realtor. A top Real Estate agent will invest in a fantastic website that looks outstanding and, more importantly, attracts buyers for local Real Estate searches.

You want your home in the spotlight, which can be achieved when the agent you select understands (SEO) search engine optimization and achieves the 1st page of Google rankings for keyword searches buyers often use.

Do You Use a Blog to Market Properties and Share Your Expertise?

Like a website, Real Estate blogs are great avenues to promote properties. You can create entire blog articles about a single home that promote its best features using multiple photos and descriptions.

Do You Use Social Media Marketing to Showcase My Home?

Sites like Facebook, X, Linkedin, and Pinterest are becoming incredible tools for a Realtor to cast a wider net to reach potential buyers and sellers.

With Facebook, you can have a business page to promote your business, including properties you may be marketing or helpful Real Estate articles. You can also do this with LinkedIn.

Many people visit social media sites daily, so it is an excellent avenue to provide exposure for homes for sale. Some agents have a network that follows them due to their expertise.Click To Tweet

Will You Be Using Video and Virtual Tours to Market My House?

This is a real estate interview question you want to ask the Realtor because it shows they are willing to diversify their real estate marketing.

Video is another important medium that has caught over the last few years and continues to grow! Buyers love to see a video tour of a property they may be interested in viewing.

A video tour can be beneficial to a relocation buyer. The tour used by the agent should be quick to download. Another consideration would be syndicating the video tour to YouTube, which gets a lot of traffic.

Will My Home Be “enhanced” on Websites Like Realtor.com and Zillow.com?

This is another fundamental question. Real Estate marketing is all about presentation and standing out from the rest of the competition. It is not enough to be included in the most well-known Real Estate sites.

The Realtor you choose should present your home with numerous photos and detailed descriptions highlighting your home’s best attributes. Embedding a virtual tour is also an excellent marketing tactic.

Survey after survey confirms that buyers looking online skip homes with a couple of photos and no descriptions. This is an enormous piece of marketing! Ensure the agent shows you precisely what your home will look like online.

Many sellers do not check on their agents. Trust me, folks, you would be flabbergasted if you knew what a poor job some Realtors do marketing homes. I like to refer to the three real estate sites mentioned above as the “big three” in real estate because they are the most visited portals for consumers looking at homes.

Your home needs to look incredible in the best real estate sites.

Do You Provide Professional Photography?

Having lots of photos is essential, but the quality of the photography can not be overlooked. It would be best to look for an agent who invests in hiring a professional photographer.

Frankly, not many things are more vital to selling homes than photography. It can make or break sales. Homes with exceptional photos get far more activity than ones that don’t.

Remember, the first showings for your home take place online. You want your home’s presentation to be spectacular.

Preparing and Staging a Home For Sale

Can You Show Me How to Make My Home More Marketable?

A Realtor should be able to give you some simple advice on making your home as presentable as possible—things like whether or not it would be worthwhile to improve or properly stage a home for sale. The general rule on improvements is to make them when they enhance the saleability or give a significant return on the money spent.

Many things can be done to improve the appearance of a home. Exceptional real estate agents regularly provide home sellers with tips and advice on how to get the most money for their properties.

Prep work is essential to getting top dollar. You can expect home buyers to scrutinize houses thoroughly. One of the services you should expect is staging advice.

Feedback and Communication Throughout The Home Sale Process

Nothing is worse than getting stuck with an agent with poor communication skills. Let’s examine the critical questions about communicating well.

When a Buyer Inquires About My house, Will You be the One They Communicate With?

It makes sense that the Realtor you hire is the one who has direct communication with the buyer when an inquiry is made. At many Real Estate offices, this is not always the case.

Often, an agent answers the phone on a particular day, and they get the lead. This is not ideal if the Realtor has never seen your home before and the buyer asks specific questions about the property.

You want the agent you hired to be communicating with potential buyers.

How Will You Communicate With Me Regarding Your Efforts?

A lack of communication is one of the biggest complaints nationally towards real estate agents. You will want to find out how the Realtor will keep in contact with you.

Is it by phone, email, or text? A Realtor should be flexible and work in the manner the client desires. Above all else, there should be regular communication.

Make sure how and how often you will be informed on what is going on in your sale.

Do You Have a Feedback System, and How Does it Work?

The showings of your house are crucial in a transaction.

Anyone I know who has ever sold a home will want to find out how potential buyers feel about the house.

The Realtor you hire should be prepared to call the buyer’s agent after the showing to find out if the buyer has any interest and, if not, what their impression was, both positive and negative.

Most top-producing agents will use a showing feedback system such as Showing Time. A company like Showing Time provides feedback to home sellers through an email system.

Getting regular updates should be something you expect and not have to beg for. Your needs should be top of mind.

Is your asking price acceptable? Is the market changing or stable? When an agent is paying attention, they talk about these things.

How Readily Accessible Will You Be?

Can I call you on your cell phone whenever I need to?

Real Estate is a business that people should be able to reach the person they hired to sell their home. A Realtor with a phone that can receive email understands the importance of rapid communication. You want to ensure your agent will take your calls as they come in.

For some reason, many Realtors never answer their phones. This is not a good sign!

Once The Offer is Accepted, Will You Attend The Home Inspections?

A full-service Realtor should be at the home inspection, bank appraisal, etc. You are paying this person a lot of money. Make sure they earn it! They have a fiduciary responsibility to YOU!

Many agents will make excuses for not attending. Don’t accept them!

How Will You Verify The Buyer is Qualified to Purchase My Home?

The Realtor should check that the buyer is qualified by ensuring a legitimate pre-approval letter accompanying the offer and speaking with the buyer’s lender.

Under no circ*mstances should you accept a pre-qualification letter instead of a pre-approval letter. There is a huge difference! A pre-qualification letter tells you very little about the buyer’s ability to get a loan.

How Much Commission Do You Charge to Sell My Home?

The real estate agent should make sure they explain how they get paid and what they do for the money earned. Commissions can vary from agent to agent, but don’t be shortsighted here.

If the going rate is X, don’t necessarily think you are saving money if an agent tells you that they will charge Y instead. The Realtor’s fees for your home should be competitive with the local real estate market.

When the rates for listings are not competitive, they lose activity.

If I Called The Broker of Your Company, Would You Be Considered a Top-Producer?

In life, you get what you pay for. Why not hire the best agent if it doesn’t cost you more? Settling is what many consumers do when it comes to choosing an agent.

Can I Terminate The Listing Contract if I am Not Satisfied?

This is a crucial interview question because a Realtor who is confident they will get the job done should have no problem with this clause.

The listing agreement should spell this out.

There are some genuinely great Realtors out there. Sometimes, it takes a little bit of time and effort to find them. Don’t settle for any Realtor that walks through your door, or you will most likely end up disappointed.

Like others, you will be researching how to fire an agent. When there are problems, you’ll want to know you can escape.

Noteworthy Statistics For Real Estate Transactions

1. Approximately 80% of home buyers interview multiple Realtors before deciding.
2. Over 90% of successful real estate transactions involve clients conducting thorough interviews with agents.
3. On average, home sellers who interviewed at least three Realtors received an offer within 30 days.
4. Studies show that clients who asked at least ten questions during the interview reported higher satisfaction with their chosen Realtor.
5. Realtors who have been in the industry for more than five years tend to have a success rate of 85% in helping clients buy or sell properties.

Final Thoughts

Reasearched interview questions should be something every home seller does! Hopefully, by now, you can see how to interview a Realtor properly, which is super important!

If you don’t know how to pick a real estate agent, chances are great you won’t be happy with the home selling process.

Other Sources For Consumers to Hire A Great Realtor:

• How to choose a Realtor to work with via Maximum Real Estate Exposure.

About the Author: Bill Gassett, a nationally recognized leader in his field, provided information on interviewing a Realtor with great questions. He is an expert in mortgages, financing, moving, home improvement, and general real estate.

Learn moreabout Bill Gassett and the publications he has been featured in. Bill can be reached via email atbillgassett@remaxexec.com or by phone at 508-625-0191. Bill has helped people move in and out of Metrowest towns for the last 38+ years.

Are you thinking of selling your home? I am passionate about real estate and love sharing my marketing expertise!

I service Real Estate Sales in the following Metrowest MA towns: Ashland, Bellingham, Douglas, Framingham, Franklin, Grafton, Holliston, Hopkinton, Hopedale, Medway, Mendon, Milford, Millbury, Millville, Natick, Northborough, Northbridge, Shrewsbury, Southborough, Sutton, Wayland, Westborough, Whitinsville, Worcester, Upton, and Uxbridge MA.