Questions to Ask Your Realtor®

What was the first thing you did after you got engaged? After calling friends and family it was probably making a list of every professional you needed to reach out to and interview - photographers, DJs, florists, caterers, and others. For this one day, an important and emotional day but still one day, you likely spent hours researching and talking to service professionals. As someone who planned most of her own wedding I can agree that the hours spent on the phone with wedding professionals and late nights reading reviews were well worth it to make sure I had a wedding with people I knew were able to fulfill my needs and my expectations. Now, I ask myself, why didn’t I take the same time to find someone to help me with one of life’s other biggest decisions, finding my home? I did what most people do, I asked my best friend who she used to buy her home, I made an appointment with that agent, and when my boyfriend (now husband) and I went to meet with her we asked more questions about buying the home than we did about working with her and that was it. We didn’t chat much about how she worked, we didn’t research any agent or brokerages. Heck, we didn’t even ask other friends who their agents were. We just picked the first one. While we lucked out and liked our agent looking back this could have been a large mistake.  Your real estate agent is the person you are going to be leaning on for several months - days, nights, and weekends - to help guide you through the process of buying a home. You shouldn’t pick them on a whim, off a sign, or simply because your friend used them. Your friend might have different needs than you and might need a different type of agent than you. I highly recommend you interview several agents and get a feel for who is right for you. So you aren’t like me, simply asking questions like “When can we start looking?!” here are some valuable questions you can ask any agent you interview to help you find your first home. Questions to Ask Your Realtor®

• What area(s) do you work in most?
• Do you work with first time buyers or second time buyers who are also selling?
• What is the best way to communicate with you when we have questions or houses we’d like to see?
• What advice do you have for us as buyers in the current market?
• What can you tell us about the current market?
• What has the average timeline been for people finding and closing on a home?
• Do you have an inspector you work with regularly?
• Do you work closely with a lender?
• Do you have connections with other home professionals (appraisers, home warranty, home insurance, etc.)?
• Why do you like working at your brokerage?

If you live in Richmond I'd love to sit down and chat through some of these questions with you. Let's grab a latte! Shoot me an email and we can set up a no-obligation, free latte date to chat about buying your home.

Happy Hunting,

Need a recommendation for an agent outside of Virginia? Shoot me an email! I have partners all over the US and am happy to help you find the right professional in your area!