How to pick a top Oakland County Lake Real Estate agent

Written by Posted On Friday, 22 June 2018 06:08

1 IMG 0061If you are looking to sell your Oakland County lake home or maybe looking to buy a lake home you may be wondering how to chose the best Oakland County lake real estate agent.  Hopefully you just will not call any real estate agent because that could lead to disaster.  Sure you may have been getting a post card for a while or saw some advertisement.  But how do you know whether they are a full time agent or whether they have experience.  There are over 12000 real estate agents with the top 1000 of them doing the majority of the business.  Like in all sales jobs there is the top 10% doing 90% of the business.

So how do you stay away from the agent that is in the lower 90% that doesn't do much business?  First let's talk about why you want an agent that sells a lot of homes, or an agent that helps a lot of home buyers.  The simple reason is they have lots of experience.  If you have bought or sold a home before you know real estate is a different type of sales.  It's not high pressure, it's more about the negotiations.  You the client wants a real estate agent that has closed many deals in the last few years.  An agent that knows how to handle issues when they come up.

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Another agent you do not want is the part time agent.  If you are selling your home you want your agent to be available to answer calls from other agents and buyers.  Reacting to and answering calls quickly helps sell a home.  If your part time agent is at their "other job" and can't take real estate calls it is going to hurt you.  You may even lose the potential sale or the house you have been dreaming of buying.  Over the years I have helped many home buyers that had to fire their last agent because the last agent could never get them out to see homes quick enough.  Sometimes the homes were sold before their agent got around to showing them.  That hurts.  You want an agent that is available to show you houses when you are available.   Having a full time agent in your corner will help you tremendously. 

DSCN2741One of the characteristics of a real estate agent that you want to hire is an Oakland County agent that really knows the lakes. If you are putting your Oakland County lake homes for sale you want somebody that sells a lot of lake homes, or lives on the lake.  Knowing the lake lifestyle is important.  Simply because we are not selling just a home, we are selling the lifestyle.  We are selling the dream of having friends and family over on the weekends to enjoy the lake.  We are selling the relaxation of coming home after a long day at work to relax on the deck or to watch the sunset on the lake.  We are selling the simpler, calmer lifestyle of watching wildlife on the lake, or just relaxing on the boat.  Lake home buyers are into water.  Hiring a realtor that loves the water and understands the triggers of what excites lake home buyers is important.  Water has a calming effect and many Oakland County lake home buyers are looking for that dream of living on a lake.  Having an real estate agent that can ask the right questions and to talk knowledgeably about the different lakes is what you want.     

Another characteristic of a good Oakland County lake real estate agent is an agent that knows how to negotiate.    You have to negotiate both the price of the home and then when it comes down to the home inspection.  Negoitations in home sales is different than other types of sales.  Buyers and sellers are quirky.  They will walk away from negotiations or back completely out of the deal if they are pushed too hard.  Having an agent that asks the right questions and is able to get you the most without blowing the deal up is important.

Here is another type of agent that you want.  A agent that is willing to put it on the line for you.  An agent that will throw down for you and get into the fray.  Sometimes we deal with other agents that do not return calls, or that try to push the envelope.  I recently had an agent try to say a contract clause was "grey".   What the problem was that the agent never told their seller that they would have to pay an assessment off.  So the day before closing the seller was upset about losing the assessment money.  The seller's agent wanted my client to pay for it.  We said no.  Then she wanted me to split it.  I said no.  It was the seller's responsibilty to pay it.  It was in the contract.  I had to stick to my guns and tell the agent she was wrong and the seller needed to pay for it.  It was not my buyer's fault that that clause was not fully explained to the seller.  It was a signed contract.  The listing agent ended up paying the assesstment and my buyer did not.

You need an agent that is willing to become hard nosed.  Sometimes you have to quit being nice.  I recently had a buyer's mortgage company that just was not doing their job.  I kept hounding the loan officer and the loan officer's boss to get it done.  We were supposed to close on May 4.  I kept getting excuses.  The loan officer was always blaming the seller or the title company or somebody why the loan wasn't done.  I finally had to email 50 people at the bank, from the CEO on down to get the loan done.  Once the upper management found out about it we closed in less than a week.  We finally closed on June 21 after about 80 days!  It was a nightmare deal because of the bank, but sometimes you have to get tough  with the loan officer to get them to do their job.  I hope this explains how to pick a top Oakland  County lake real estate agent.      

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