Should you look for qualifications or experience when choosing your estate agent to sell your home?
The average seller spends years deliberating about selling their home. With all of that time spent researching, many sellers will already know which estate agent they will use when ready to market their home. So, how have they made this decision?
The average seller spends years deliberating about selling their home. And countless hours scrolling through the property websites to see what is available.
With all that time spent researching, many sellers will already know which estate agent they will use when ready to market their home. Studies show that most sellers have already decided who they will ask to sell their house long before arranging the valuation appointments.
So, how have they made this decision?
Gut instinct?
The biggest or busiest agent is 'probably' the best?
The agent with the most for-sale boards in your town seems okay, so you'll probably just call them, right?
So you arrange for the 3 most likely candidates to visit your home and tell you what they think.
This is the agents' time to shine. Their opportunity to pitch you for the business. An interview or audition, if you like. They come to your home with the intention to wow you with their local knowledge and impressive sales figures. They tell you how many properties they've sold in your street over the years. Or perhaps they show off their shiny certificate from the exams they've passed with flying colours.
In the wise words of Shania Twain, "that don't impress me much"!
It's all a bit lacklustre. You're not wowed or bowled over by anything you've been told. You're not excited by the agents' passion or their creative ideas about how they want to market your home.
So what should you be impressed by?
Being able to pass an exam does confirm that this agent has read up on the role they're working in and was competent enough to pass the exams.
Great. Doing a job for a long time does mean that you will have years of experience. Fabulous. But do either of those points guarantee that they will be able to sell your home? No, of course not. In truth, neither years of experience nor qualifications will guarantee an excellent selling experience for you when you sell your home.
So what should you look for when choosing an estate agent?
You should look for an agent with a plan! Not just an arbitrary plan but a structured process that can be proven to get results. Of course, experience is important. Otherwise, there won't be any substance behind the plan and absolutely no proof that it works. And qualifications, whilst not essential, definitely confirm that this agent has a clue. But, fundamentally, it isn't all about certificates and the number of years in the job. That is good but certainly not the be-all and end-all.
Your agents need a plan!
It's a way to demonstrate how they work and what they'll do to ensure that your home sells for the highest amount of money in the shortest possible timescale.
This is the goal of all estate agents and sellers.
So how will they achieve this?
Having tons of boards up in the town does not mean that the agent is the busiest seller. It actually means that they are busy marketing properties. You want to see how they are being marketed and how that marketing translates to viewings and offers for you.
So, to summarise, qualifications and experience are very important factors. Still, without a plan for how the task of selling your home is achieved, they're simply ego boosters for the agent and won't guarantee a sale for you and your home.
When you're ready to put your home on the market, consider your valuation appointments as interviews and ask the agents to demonstrate their proven process for selling homes.
If you'd like to hear more about our selling process and how we help our clients secure the highest possible offers in the shortest amount of time, get in touch today!