How to Vet a Realtor and Know You’re Hiring the Right One
Choosing the right Realtor is not always as simple as finding the person with the most years in the business or the biggest team.
In fact, both of those things can be misleading.
When I am vetting an agent for a client—especially when I am referring someone to another market—I am usually looking for a very specific sweet spot.
Years in Real Estate Do Not Automatically Equal Experience
One of the first things consumers often ask is:
“How long have you been in real estate?”
That question does not tell you nearly as much as people think.
Someone can have a real estate license for 20 years, but if they only sell one home per year, they have completed roughly 20 transactions.
That is very different from an agent who is handling dozens of transactions every year and constantly seeing new inventory, offers, inspections, negotiations, appraisals and changing buyer behavior.
Experience should not just be measured in years.
It should also be measured in repetitions.
Bigger Is Not Always Better Either
The other extreme can be just as misleading.
You may see a real estate “team” advertising 500 or even 1,000 sales per year.
That sounds incredible.
But then you dig deeper and discover that the number is spread across 50 or 100 agents.
At that point, you are looking at something much closer to a brokerage than a traditional team.
The problem is not the size itself.
The question is: Who are you actually working with?
If the person whose name is on the team is managing dozens of agents and no longer attending listing appointments, showing homes, seeing inventory or negotiating deals, their experience may not be the experience you actually receive.
Likewise, if you are handed off to an agent completing only a handful of transactions per year, the team’s overall production number does not necessarily help you.
The Sweet Spot
For a suburban market like Suffolk County, Long Island, I personally like to see an individual agent selling somewhere around 30 to 80 homes per year themselves—not their team.
That is not a universal rule, but it is a strong benchmark.
At that level, an agent is usually doing enough business to understand different price points, neighborhoods and market conditions in real time.
But they are also more likely to still be personally involved with their clients.
That is where I believe the best combination of experience and service exists.
Questions You Should Actually Ask a Realtor
Instead of only asking how long someone has been licensed, ask:
How many homes did you personally sell last year?
What towns were those homes in?
What price points do you work in most often?
Will you personally be handling my transaction?
Are you still attending appointments and negotiating deals yourself?
Those answers will tell you far more than a team logo or a number of years in the business.
The Bottom Line
There is such a thing as too little experience.
There is also such a thing as so much scale that the person with the experience is no longer the person working with you.
The goal is to find the middle.
An agent who sells enough real estate to truly understand the market—but is still close enough to the work to personally apply that experience to your transaction.
Not too small.
Not too big.
Just right.
