I wanted to just take a second and throw my extra two cents in… What I find to be interesting on top of these numbers is looking at the total listed compared with total sold. Of any agents, not just the “neighborhood experts,” of all the listings they took, how many did they actually sell and what was their original list to final sale price. This tells me some really interesting things 1) How effective are you at actually marketing the property 2) How right were you with your estimation of value originally. We all know that the longer the property sits on the market the more likely you are to actually sell your home for less than if you had it listed at the right price to begin with…

There any many questions that potential clients should be asking their agents, unfortunately many just don’t know which questions they are and too many agents steer the conversation to their “neighborhood knowledge” or the size of their company and not to their actual competence as an agent.

Hopefully your dad likes his agent. If not, let me know. One of the services I offer for free is to identify agents outside of St. Louis for people buying/selling elsewhere. I know the right questions to ask and can pick an agent that an insider would use. In return, if the buyer/seller likes that agent and closes on a house with their help, then they will send me a small referral fee at closing.

Win – win. I get a small fee for my consulting time, the agent gets a client and the buyer/seller gets a good agent.