I'm getting ready to sell my home and have read the Dummies book. Next week I will interview three Realtors. The purpose of this post is to solicit questions based on mistakes / experiences you may have had that I should be cautious about.
The house is in an upscale Midwest suburb on 1.5 acres of land. The house is OK, but 6 of 33 homes have been torn down and replaced with 5000+ sq ft homes in the last 10 years. A house two doors down just sold for $450K as a tear down on two acres.
Based on your selling experiences, what question(s) do you wish you'd asked?
I really like my real estate man, who I have used for a long time. He did an exemplary job for me in buying two houses and selling one over the past fifteen years. So anything I say is not based on having a poor real estate man but instead are based on thinking back about the good qualities he demonstrated for me.
You should ask him what asking price he would list the house for, and expect him to provide specific comps to back up his estimate. He should provide you with hard copies of these comps, and they should seem reasonably comparable to your home. If not, you should question him closely about them and point out differences that you see that could affect the price.
Ask him what repairs or renovations he wants you to do before putting the house on the market. Does he want you to stage the house? Move out? Or what?
Ask him how he plans to market the house.
Ask him if houses are selling well in your area, and what the average "days on the market" is.
Ask him how often he will stay in contact with you, and what he expects from you as a seller.
Ask him how many years of experience he has doing real estate in your specific suburb.
Ask him if he works full time, and how many houses he sells per year. If he claims to sell a lot of houses each year, find out tactfully if he will be handling this sale himself or if he will pass it off to assistants that are younger and less experienced realtors.
Overall, I think it's important to get somebody that you can easily communicate with and vice versa. And, he should have a lot of experience successfully selling real estate in your area, he should knock himself out marketing the house, and he should stay in contact with you.