Is your agent doing everything to move your home?

How do home sellers know if their real estate agents are doing a good job?

It’s more complex than calculating how many days a home has sat on the market. The current residential real estate market is a tough one. Just because a home hasn’t sold doesn’t mean that its listing agent isn’t doing a good job.

Today, agents have to work hard to move their listings. Gone are the days when they could sell a house by placing it on the Multiple Listing Service and hammering a sign in its front lawn. Agents today have to market homes more aggressively to cut through the glut of housing inventory available in a slowing market.

I speak to a lot of real estate agents for my job as a real estate writer and editor. Here are some of the strategies that top agents use to sell homes in the good times. They’re even more important in today’s sluggish market. Sellers whose agents aren’t taking these steps might want to consider searching for a new Realtor.

1. Top agents attend their sellers’ showings: Top-producing agents in Chicago and its suburbs told me that they never skip a showing of their listings. This way, agents can tout positive features that buyers might otherwise miss. They can also tell buyers about the neighborhood and its amenities. If buyers have any questions, the listing agent should have the answers.
2. The best agents don’t ignore buyer feedback: When selling a house, buyer feedback is important. If a steady stream of buyers is complaining about the wall color in the kitchen, it’s probably time to repaint. It’s an agent’s job to not only ask for feedback from every showing, but to suggest ways to react to buyer comments.
3. Agents who don’t use the Web to its fullest potential cost their clients: Every agent today posts listings on sites such as Realtor.com. That’s a given. The best, though, post listings on everything from craigslist to the real estate sections of high-end newspapers to message boards. They also give each of their properties their own Web site, often with address-specific URLs. These are the latest thing. A house sitting at 123 Main Street would have the following URL: www.123mainstreet.com.
4. To move listings, savvy agents market to their fellow Realtors: Top-producing agents promote their listings to the agents in their offices, to the ones they meet at industry functions and to the ones they run into at open houses and on showings. Those other agents may know the perfect buyers for that hard-to-move property.
5. Skilled agents don’t spurn the open house: Many agents view the Sunday open house as a relic. Top ones don’t. They know that though the nosy neighbors poking through their listings’ bathrooms and kitchens might not be buying, they may know co-workers, friends or family members who are.
6. Top agents aren’t afraid to sweeten the deal: Moving residences is no easy task these days. Sometimes agents have to offer incentives to persuade buyers to make their offers. Sellers might be willing to provide a credit to buyers. They might be willing to set aside money for repairs. They might even agree to move the closing date. Any of these incentives might make the difference between an offer and a “pass over.”
7. The best agents realize that target marketing is key: Most agents market their listings in newspaper and magazine ads. A smaller number actually target those ads according to the homes they’re trying to move. For instance, an agent trying to sell a million-dollar-plus home should advertise in publications specializing in those buyers. They might advertise in law magazines, medical trade publications or in the Wall Street Journal.