question for those who have sold a house.

[elaineandmichaelsmommy]

How do you pick a realtor? I've been trying, we've interviewed 2 of them but I'm just not impressed by either of them. Did you go by word of mouth or research on websites? I don't have any family that's sold a house recently and the only other people I know who've sold recently are my pediatrician and one friend.

What did you do to find yours? I'm really up a creek without a paddle here.

[JMS]

In our area there are a couple names that you see all over the place. Can you drive around and see who is listing other homes comparable to yours? Then when interviewing I would pay attention to the number of listings, the average days the listings where on the market and the discrepancy between listing price and sale price. GL - it's hard :)

[SnuggleBuggles]

Maybe you or your dh could talk to HR at your office and see who they use when they are relocating someone to your area? That's how we found our realtor.

Beth

[MamaMolly]

Our best agent ever was one through our bank. They have a recommendation program, and you got $$ back if you bought or sold through them. I'd look into a program like that. Insurance companies sometimes offer them too.

[DebbieJ]

Dave Ramsey (financial guru) has an endorsed local provider program. We got our realtor that way. She sold our house in a month in the fall of 2007 (when things were starting to tank).

http://www.daveramsey.com/sa/realestate/ (http://www.daveramsey.com/elp)

[TwinFoxes]

This probably won't help you, but we bought our house during the boom, and realtors would stop by asking us if we wanted to sell. Our realtors really stood out, and as the market in LA (where we owned our home) tanked, we still saw them listing and sellling homes. When it was time for us to relocate, we used them. It took a while to sell our house, but we finally did (yay, just a couple of weeks ago!) and made PROFIT. So look around the area and find the people who actually have sold homes, check out local real estate websites for clues.

[BabyMine]

I know my realtor very well. She is my Mom.

[Sillygirl]

I had worked with our realtor as we both were on the HOA of our neighborhood. She didn't live in our development but owned several rental properties there. If you have a HOA, you might ask if there's someone like that - it's not uncommon for one person to own a number of homes, and often they are realtors, or work with a realtor who knows the neighborhood.

[etaylor75]

Go to a couple of open houses - it would give you a good idea of how they would show your house/ work for you.....

Erin

[kransden]

For you, make sure you have one that works in the neighborhood. A county agent will be worthless. There are several very aggressive realtors in the area.

[newmomto1]

How do you pick a realtor? I've been trying, we've interviewed 2 of them but I'm just not impressed by either of them. Did you go by word of mouth or research on websites? I don't have any family that's sold a house recently and the only other people I know who've sold recently are my pediatrician and one friend.

What did you do to find yours? I'm really up a creek without a paddle here.

Aren't you in STL?? If so, I can give you the name of my agent. We really like her :)

[newg]

We went with a family friend and it was hard because of that line between business and friendship.....we felt there were some things she did (or didn't do) we didn't quite like, but felt it would have been too hard to say anything.....
I agree with pp about going through some open houses and see how you like the realtors.....there is one guy is this area with signs all over the place, but I have yet to see him with an open house and his houses don't seem to be selling all that quickly......Maybe even go knock on a few houses and talk to the people about their realtor....see if they like him/her and why..