From the remaining candidates you’ll hear a wide range of claims, many of them involving impressive stats on how they ‘consistently beat the market averages’. Some of them do, but how can you be sure their claims are entirely truthful? There’s no way you can verify for yourself that the sales they based their impressive stats on were ALL of their sales. It’s a common trick to ‘cherry-pick’ only those homes that sold for better than market average prices or that sold in less than the average time on market. The fact is that ‘stats’ are a poor way to judge as they can be so easily falsified, or even if the realtor is being honest, still be misleading. What about listings they had that didn’t sell? Obviously these can’t be measured for sale to list price ratio or time on market and if they have an inordinately high number of expired listings behind them there would be no way to know.

Some people choose their realtor based upon trust, which in the context of a one hour meeting at your kitchen table amounts to the same thing as ‘how much do you like this person’. I would still maintain that this is a better standard than dubious and unverifiable sales statistics but hardly the best way to protect your investment in your most valuable asset. It’s entirely possible that the realtor who rubbed you the wrong way is also a very competent marketer and salesperson who would actually get you more for your home. You should probably suspend your personal likes and dislikes in the interest of maximizing your return on investment.

Of course you can always choose the ‘area’ specialist. After all, they’ve been working the area for years, you see their signs everywhere. They must know what they’re doing, right? Well, they might. Or, perhaps they do so well not because they’re good at selling houses but because they are good at selling themselves.

Finally, there’s the team approach. Realtors with one or more assistants, some of whom are realtors themselves can certainly instill confidence. After all, you’re getting an entire team for the same price as one realtor. But wait. Doesn’t that mean that they’re sharing the commission? And if they’re sharing the commission doesn’t that mean his office will have to do many more sales than the average realtor in order for everyone to make a living? If that’s the case, how much time and attention do they have to devote to your listing? They might do a good job, or they might drop the ball at a crucial moment because there was poor team communication, or just because they were busy with another deal.

The fact is that the best way to judge your realtor is on the strength of their marketing plan. Are they going to do more than just pound a sign into your lawn and put your home on the MLS? Does their marketing plan make sense to you? Does it take into account the fact that the world of real estate marketing has changed significantly in the last 20 years, shifting away from print media to online marketing? It’s the answers to these questions that will identify the realtor best suited to sell your home.

The fact is that CalgaryRealtor.com is owned by a realtor in Calgary – but he’s not allowed to use it. Way back, many years ago, the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) trademarked the word ‘Realtor’, as well as the acronym ‘MLS’. Today, under the bylaws set out by CREA for its members (that would be every realtor in Canada as membership is mandatory) no realtor may use the word ‘Realtor’ or the acronym ‘MLS’ in conjunction with a place name in a web address. Why? Well, that’s a good question. CREA would claim it’s to protect the integrity of the trademark. But, according to the law, trademark copyrights do not extend to domain names except where that trademark is being used in a defamatory manner. One is hard pressed to understand how a realtor could be using the word ‘Realtor’ in a defamatory manner.

It’s also interesting to note that when CalgaryRealtor.com was shut down by CREA (through the use of ominous letters from CREA’s legal department) not only were a number of other CalgaryRealtor domains still in operation but the realtor who owned CalgaryRealtor.com was strongly urged to simply hand this address over to the Calgary Real Estate Board. As these other CalgaryRealtor domains remained in operation for many months after CalgaryRealtor.com was shut down we might even be tempted to think that CREA and the Calgary Real Estate Board might have had another agenda aside from just protecting the integrity of their copyright. This of course is merely conjecture.

How do I know all this? As you may have guessed I am that realtor.