The Home Team - choosing an agent to sell one's home

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, June, 2001 by Elizabeth Razzi

SCOTT AND CHERIE EMIGH don't tend to settle for the first thing that comes along. When they were looking for a new home near Dallas six years ago, they didn't go for a ready-built tract mansion. Instead they hired an architect to design a home to their liking. Then, when a job transfer made it necessary to sell their West Plano home, the couple wasn't about to sign up with the first real estate agent who walked through the door. They interviewed five before making a decision.

When you consider that the Emighs were probably going to shell out more than $35,000 in sales commission, asking five hopefuls to compete for the job hardly sounds unreasonable. But it is very unusual.

The overwhelming majority of people--74% of sellers and 61% of buyers--hire the first agent they talk to, according to research from the National Association of Realtors. Only 1% of sellers take the time to contact five or more, as the Emighs (pronounced Amy) did.

Their search paid off. The couple ended up with one of the most technologically advanced real estate agencies in the country--and achieved a fairly quick sale during a slow-moving winter market.

Last December, the couple listed their home for $598,000 with Judy McCutchin, an agent with Re/Max Preston Road North, in Dallas. While many real estate agents still see themselves as one-person shops, McCutchin uses the increasingly popular team approach. And what ties her four-woman team together as a selling machine is her Web site, Dallashomes.com.

Bells and dog whistles

MCCUTCHIN HAS lots of bells and whistles on the site, most notably "Chester B. Chatsworth," a cartoon Great Dane who can answer your real estate questions in an online chat, basically by offering to take your questions to his "master." (Folks at an Internet call center in Chantilly, Va., field calls for Chester when there's no human on the line in Texas.)

You may not want to take advice from a dog, but the real teeth of McCutchin's operation are her listings. That's what customers want most from a Web site--and she has it in spades: All the homes in the area's multiple-listing service are there, and the list is updated daily. Multiple-listing services are run by local boards of Realtors and include most, if not all, of the homes listed for sale throughout the area.

Realtors have long kept MLS info close to their vests, because it's the listings that attract buyers. Buyers attract sellers, and sellers sign the listing contracts that yield commissions. But now agents increasingly figure that they must make the MLS accessible on their Web sites if they're going to stay competitive.

McCutchin's site offers the real deal, too, complete with addresses, photographs, and often 360-degree panoramas of the outside and interior rooms. These details spell an end to the frustration caused by vague, real-estate-speak descriptions of home locations--"prettiest street in the Fernwood area"--that force you to call the agent for a better description.

MLS-browsing buyers who pass through McCutchin's online real estate store make good fishing for sellers like the Emighs. But what appealed to Scott most was the "private websuite" feature that McCutchin offers to those who hire her. Sellers can log on to their own password-controlled Web page and follow all the information that affects their home sale. They can see a copy of any ads that have been placed and read reports from inspectors and appraisers.

To Scott, the most useful aspect was that he could log on daily and read comments agents had passed along after showing his home to buyers. "We discovered one trend," he says. "Comments regarding the pricing of the home as a little aggressive were steadily increasing over time. It convinced my wife and me it was time to drop the price."

Bringing business home

REALTORS in North Texas were some of the first in the country to download the MLS to their own sites and share the wealth of information with anyone hooked up to the Web. Similar sunshine rules are supposed to be implemented across the country by the end of the year, but the rules will vary from place to place. For example, agents at Century 21 Maki United, in Waukegan, Ill., can put almost the entire MLS on their own Web sites--but they must leave out addresses.

The arrival of the MLS on local Web sites will prompt a shift in Internet use away from the megasites (those with nationwide listings) and toward local sites run by tech-savvy agents.

Two major players nationally--Realtor.com and Homeadvisor.com-offer loads of articles, calculators and advice on important topics, such as getting your house in shape for sale, dealing with inspections, and hiring movers. Each has millions of listings nationwide. But if you've narrowed down your home search to a couple of neighborhoods--as most people do very early on--then you will find better listing information on the Web sites maintained by top local agents, particularly as more and more offer access to the full-blown multiple-listing service.

Agents are keenly aware of statistics indicating that the first one to knock on your door is the one most likely to get your business. Increasingly, smart agents are using the megasites as little more than a signpost directing buyers and sellers to their own, more advanced sites. You can expect information on agents' sites to be more timely than that posted on the giants. To supplement the bare-bones information about a house you might find on Realtor.com or Homeadvisor.com, click through to the listing agent's site for more-detailed information on the same home, such as color photos, virtual tours and the street address.