Becoming a successful realtor is directly related to the amount of effort you put forth. When it comes to listing their homes, most people hire an agent on appearance and gut feeling. Beyond that, real estate agents get asked certain questions, and many clients hire based on responses gotten.
To be better prepared for such moments and to land fantastic deals with clients, we have listed for you here, top questions realtors get asked and how to answer them.
1. Why do you want to be my realtor?
It’s a pretty simple question, but you might be caught unawares with this question. Some people will respond with the completely unhelpful and overly generic, canned response:
“Because I want you to help you find the home of your dreams!”
And others will just be honest about it:
“Because I’m looking for new business, I understand what you need, and I think we can help each other.”
(Note: If you claim to know what your client needs, then you should also be able to spell it out with some clarity. This will better convince them and land you an offer with them.)
No particular answer is right or wrong, but I do think the answers you give will tell your client very quickly whether you’ll be honest with them (even when the truth hurts) OR you’re a people-pleaser.
Beware of offering a sugar-coated answer. Clients appreciate it when you bring honesty to the table. They want to know if their asking price is too high or if they’re trying to buy a property in a terrible location.
2. What’s your experience?
This is a tricky question as regards your past and current listings, so you’ll have to know ahead of time what you consider being an appropriate figure. While there’s no magic number for how many clients an agent can effectively handle, a number that’s staggeringly high, like 40 listings or 15 buyer clients, could indicate that your time will be divided and clients won’t get much one-on-one attention.
On the other hand, too few clients could signal an agent who doesn’t have much experience or who hasn’t been well recommended by previous buyers and sellers. Or, this could be a side gig for her which may or may not command much of her attention. Since word of mouth is key in the real estate business, the best agents are likely to have a full workload.
There’s no magic number when it comes to experience. Let your client know that you have enough sales under your belt to comfortably handle deals from listing to closing. Equally important, as an agent, you need to know the area and have familiarity with the local inventory. So, talk about your recent listings.
3. How do you plan to market the listing?
Sellers often ask agents how they plan to sell their home.
In this case, It’s fundamental to talk about your marketing track record as an agent, showing your past listings. This will put your client’s mind at ease.
One of your biggest advantages as a real estate agent is your access to resources for marketing your client’s home. Tell your client that you will post their house on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) immediately after signing with you. The MLS is a system of databases which lists homes for sale and gives their house a broad exposure to homebuyers.
An agent should market a house in other ways too. Print advertising includes ads in newspapers and magazines, or brochures and flyers like the ones you see in waiting rooms and at the entrances to restaurants. However, one of the most common venues for selling homes is the Internet. Make sure you use quality photos for the online listings.
The Internet is used to find a home 88 percent of the time, according to the National Association of Realtors. Web sites such as Yahoo! Real Estate, Realtor.com, and Craigslist are also favorite places for listings. You can also show your client, your realty company website where they can search your MLS listings.
Also, agents need to be able to show sellers examples of virtual tours they’ve created.
