San Jose Short Sale Agent: Silicon Valley Foreclosure Prevention Specialists

My numbers are 48, 99.25 and 1.  What am I talking about?   Let me explain.

I was asked to find a listing agent for a friend who lives in the LA area.  As I am in the business, he thought I would have a better chance of finding him a good listing agent, rather than filtering through the tons of marketing material he receives which didn’t give him much information on determining how effective an agent was at selling homes.  He wanted to cut through the fluff.

I must agree, trying to find a good agent on the web and even calling managers of brokerages to ask for referrals of top producing agents in their respective offices did not seem to work out well for me either.  I guess I am seeing the struggles that the consumers have in finding specific and useful information about real estate agents out there.  As practitioners in our local areas, we all sort of take it for granted we know the power players in the area.  What we need to provide more of is hard data and less hyperbole about what good real estate agents we all are.  It is precisely these types of data that consumers need to make informed decisions.  And consumers, ask for performance data, you have to do your own due diligence to find the right agent to represent you.  At the end of the day, it is your decision and you must choose wisely.

What really puzzled me was why managers would give me names of agents who were not their top producing agents and who did not have the extensive listing experience when those two specifics qualities were what I requested.   I asked for people who were top producing listing agents and ones who had a good inventory of listings in or around my friend’s neighborhood.

Of the several names I was given, when I went to their websites and other resources to check up before I made contact, I discovered several were “new agents” with no listing inventory at all and others who were supposed “top producers” really did not have much volume of business in the past couple of years.  I was not trying to embarrass anyone, but I had asked for specific type of agents, but on several occasions, I was given  candidates that did not match the requests.   And the term “Top Producer” is obviously used very loosely out there because everyone claimed to be in that category.

Of the others who did carry the inventory and the volume that I had requested, when I asked for their average DOM (days on market) and list/close price ratio, only one was able to give me straight a straight answer.  Others gave me double talk and said they did not know the exact numbers, and would get back to me.  These were supposed to be top produces in their respective offices, yet they did not know their stats?   I’m pretty certain most top producers in a real estate office know their sales stats inside and out; or at least these two that most realtors discuss in their listing presentations.  It may be different in LA, but here in Silicon Valley, where we are over-represented by engineers, data reign supreme, so we need to know our numbers.

What are my numbers?  48 days is my average Days On Market (DOM);  99.25% is my average list/sale price ratio and #1 was my office ranking in 2010 at Keller Williams Cupertino.  I am proud of my stats because I worked very hard at them over the years and I certainly know them and am willing to share.  So all those self professed “Top Producers” out there, let’s use data to support our claims.  What are your numbers?

As consumers of a particular type of service, you have the right to and should do your own due diligence before hiring someone to sell your home. I, like most consumers, am a firm believer in getting the most for my money.  That is why I advocate that home sellers ask the relevant questions which get to the heart of the matter.   Don’t be shy.

Ask performance related questions, you are not imposing or digging too deeply if you inquire about data to support an agent’s assertions, especially if they are claiming to be experts or are other wise claiming to be better than their competition.  The details of their marketing plan and what they are going to do to bring a tremendous amount of buyers through the door, or to have your house listed on all the different real estate related websites with videos and nice music, etc…, and how they are going to stage your home to make sure it looks the best that it possibly can becomes secondary to the two most important questions for most sellers: how quick and for how much?

Don’t get me wrong, it is important to understand how your property will be marketed and what amount of resources of the commission being paid will be applied towards the marketing efforts of your home.  After all, you want to see where your commission money is going.  However, from my own experience at listing presentations, for most sellers, those types of details become far less important than those two simple questions.

If a Realtor cannot answer those two questions for you, then there is something wrong.  Trust me when I tell you that any Realtor worth their weight in salt knows or should know these performance data.  These numbers are tracked by the MLS and are referred to as DOM (days on market) and list/sale price ratio.  Because this data can measure our efficacy, many of us use these numbers in our marketing material aimed at home sellers.  And as it is also the end of the year, many of us are reviewing our performance numbers anyway.   To give you an example, my numbers this year are 34 days and 102%.  This means on average my listing takes 34 days before a house is taken off market and it will bring in 2% over the list price.

Finding a good Realtor to sell your home should be an interactive experience with the sellers asking relevant questions as a part of their due diligence as much as the Realtor’s claims about how they can sell your home better than their competitor.  If they do not provide data, ask for them.  The decision to engage should not be based solely on receiving pretty post cards or receiving nice little writing pads with the Realtor’s pretty mug staring back at you; it should be all about how they can bring  value to your  transaction.