It’s time to hire a real estate agent. You want them to have local market knowledge, be a good negotiator, and to know how to best protect your interests. But, do you care if your real estate agent is friendly?
I am here to explain that YES, you want your real estate agent to be friendly. But, why?
Your Real Estate Agent should be friendly to YOU
Buying real estate is a huge investment. The real estate agent should help guide you to what you want. Often times your opinions, expectations, wants, and needs change throughout the process. If you can’t be friendly with your agent, how can they help get you to where you want to be? If your agent isn’t friendly enough to be able to pick up on your tastes, how can you expect them to find the best property for you?
As a seller, you have to confide in your agent to help you get the highest price, with the best possible closing scenario for you. If you can’t be friendly with them, how do they know how to help you best?
Negotiations aren’t always about getting the best price. When a buyer or seller is friendly with their agent, the real estate agent learns about their wants, motivations, and expectations. The agent can then negotiate better for them, knowing what will be the most beneficial for them. Sometimes a buyer or seller need their agent to educate them, on what is best for them. If the relationship is not friendly, one or the other side may not feel comfortable discussing concerns or issues, and then the deal is lost.
Your Real Estate Agent should be friendly to Other Real Estate Agents
For Showings
As a buyer or seller, what do you care about the other agent? You actually should care a lot more than you think. Good real estate agents want to work with other good real estate agents. If your agent is rude or difficult to schedule the showing, the other agent may not be very accommodating. Sometimes listings can be hard for a listing agent to access, but I promise you, the nicer the buyer’s agent is, the more the listing agent will try and help them get in there.
For Your Offer
Negotiating is a skill, and a lot of people think that they want someone who, “plays hardball.” Being rude and mean does not make people want to do things for you. And it certainly isn’t going to help your chances on the property if your agent is unfriendly when presenting your offer. A good agent, should be able to present your offer in a friendly way, with exceptional data and reasoning to back up your offer. A good agent should be able to handle a low offer on your listing in a way that is friendly with the other side, so they can get the offer up to a price that works for you as the seller.
For Your Deal
Just because you go to contract, it doesn’t mean that your real estate agent’s job is over. Problems can come up with inspections and/or appraisals, and you bet your agent has to be on top of that. Similar to negotiating your offer, if your agent was not friendly from the start, the other side is not going to want to help your side out when you come back for more negotiations.
Your Real Estate Agent should be friendly FOR you
There are so many times that you want to kill the other side. The buyer or seller on the other side is being unreasonable, and you want to yell at them and tell them that. That is where your friendly real estate agent comes in. They listen to you, then take your concerns and issues back to the other side. This is why you need a real estate agent. Not using a realtor, when a buyer and seller deal with each other (for sale by owner), emotions run high and deals often fall apart. Your friendly real estate agent takes your emotions, and filters them into a solid request to take to the other side to help get what you want.
Still not sure if you want a friendly real estate agent?
When you were in school, did you want to help out the bullies? No, because the bullies did things the way they wanted, without caring about anyone else’s feelings. It is easy to be a bully, but it takes skill to be a friendly real estate agent.