When you are considering hiring a Realtor(r) or a Team to help you with buying or selling a home, there is one important thing that few people think to ask.
It's important to ask them what they have for support. Why is that important?
There are 4 main reasons.- The support they have.....
1. Makes a difference in how likely you are to actually get to the closing table.
2.Will determines how much time they have to devote to you instead of to paperwork.
3. Often determines their level of training
4. Often is key when resources & advice are needed when something goes wrong.
So what would you want your Real Estate Agent to have as far as support?
To some extent that depends on the agent's business model and how much business the agent is doing. The average agent does less than 10 transactions in an entire year. This agent may be fine with less administrative support because they have plenty of time to be a jack of all trades with in their business. They can be a showing agent, a listing agent, their own administrative assistant, their own marketing department, their own accountant, their own receptionist...you get the picture. They may be able to juggle all of these rolls and deliver great service too. ( some can some can't, being good at all these things is rare, but at least a lower transaction agent has more time to try to do them all.) The problem is, the less transactions a Real Estate Agent does in a year, the less experience they have. So a mid to high transaction agent will who has assistance and does not do all the tasks themselves is often more experienced as well, even with the same number of years in the business as the agent who serves as their own admin person and so on.
1. Administrative-. Ideally you may want to hire an agent who has administrative support. Part of this support is called "Transaction Coordination". The simplified version of what this job is, is someone who handles all the paperwork, double checks for accuracy, stays on top of deadlines, makes sure all the parties that need copies of the paperwork have them, problem solves and handles paperwork for state compliance. This might not seem important to the client and yet a skilled transaction coordinator often is the reason that a transaction closes on time or at all. They are problem solving and troubleshooting for issues through out the transaction.
Even more importantly, this type of support makes it so that your Real Estate Agent has more time to invest in consulting with you, in following the market, in going to training & can be more available to you. There are other administrative tasks besides Transaction Coordination, and it's great if some of those are handled by either the same person or a different assistant as well for the sheer amount of time it frees of for your Real Estate Agent to attend to your needs.
2. Brokerage support- This is the support that the Brokerage your Real Estate Agent works for offers them....again, this might seem unimportant and nothing could be further from the truth. About 8 out of 10 Real Estate agents don't even make it through their first 2 years in business, they get out before that. Why? Because they started with a Brokerage that did not support them. A good Brokerage should basically work as a business incubator for real estate practices.
It should offer the following support:
A. A Designated broker who oversees and helps agents with difficult contracts and teaches their agents about contracts. Ideally this is this
individuals main or only job.
B. Training to help keep the Real Estate Agent on the cutting edge of laws, the market and client care.
C. Tools that help them serve their clients at a high level.
D. Brokerage office staff that cares for the day to day details of the brokerage.
E. Leadership staff that coordinates training, & is available to coach & train agents and staff.
When hiring, ask your broker, what support do you have in caring for my needs as your client? Who provides it? There is other important support, but these 2 types of support are most likely to have an impact on whether you are well cared for as a client. Few think to ask about it, and yet since it matters so much, it's important that you understand the support your Real Estate Agent will have during the duration of the time they are working for you.
Look for more posts explaining what a Transaction Coordinator does for you and for your Agent as well as about the role of an Agent vs the role of the Brokerage they work with and how it's important to you.
Anna Matsunaga is well supported by her team and her brokerage- She works with full time administrative support for Transaction Coordination, Marketing, Property Showing and more. She also is supported by Keller Williams, the number 1 Real Estate Brokerage in the country, which provides training and staff to support her entire team, as well as Brivity, which is a system that provides services, additional training, database management and more. She also have a long list of Vendors who provide professional services including home inspections, photography and more.
To reach Anna for a consultation to see how her team can help you, call 253 212 1252 or Email- Team@teammomentumrealestate.com
