Who's Your Real Estate Agent?

After signing a listing agreement as a seller with a real estate agent or facilitator, do you know who your real estate agent is really going to be? You may think you do but chances are you could be mistaken. What do we mean by this?

Many people will list their home or property with an individual, someone they may know or who was referred to them, or maybe they just picked the phone or walked into a real estate firm and were assigned an individual. Is this your real estate agent or facilitator? Maybe in the end, they are not.

What this post is pointing out is that depending on the firm, their size, their office policies, your home may be shown in a variety of ways by a variety of people and you may not have any choice at all about this.

For example the practice in many areas of the country and many markets is for the listing agent/facilitator to place a lock box on the property so that any licensees in that MLS (Multiple Listing Service area) may access the house on their own, without even being accompanied by the listing person.

In other cases, say in an office with multiple sales persons, your property may be shown many more times by someone in the firm other than the individual you actually listed the property with in the first place.

It is therefore really important that you understand who can access and show your property and how they do so when deciding on where to place the listing on your property. Do you care? Does it matter or make a difference? You bet it does and can!

Future blogs will delve into these subjects in some detail.

Paul Harsch, president and founder of Harsch Associates, a Berkshire County based real estate brokerage firm, is a licensed real estate broker in Massachusetts, New York and Vermont, serving a diverse residential, business, commercial and land client base for 40 years.