This past week, I had the privilege of working with one of the most skilled and capable real estate attorneys in the business. She delivered one of the smoothest closings that I have ever had, and all parties involved in the transaction were thrilled! To celebrate, we went out to lunch and my team and I were very honored and proud that she also told us that we were the best real estate brokers/salespeople she had ever worked with in her many years of practice.

I’m communicating this here not to stroke my ego, but to inform anyone reading this the importance of working with experienced, detail-oriented, flexible, informed, and skillful Realtors in this challenging real estate environment. In a seller’s market with many buyers and limited inventory, I believe that the Realtors handling of the negotiation and transaction process (from contract execution to closing) is not quite as critical. However, in this market, where we have a growing inventory of unsold property and a scarcity of buyers it is CRUCIAL to work with a real estate salesperson that will use all of their skills, knowledge, relationships, intelligence, professional contacts, and most importantly *experience* to guide a transaction to a successful closing.

In the case of the this week’s sale, I represented the buyer, and it should be noted that the sellers were representing the estate of a deceased (very wealthy) property owner and were very eager to stop the financial losses associated with owning an empty property for over two years. The sellers had to bring almost $250,000 to the closing table, which I am finding the scenario increasingly common among sellers who purchased after 2003.

My team and I are finding our time VERY limited these days, and our commitment is to providing the strongest and most innovative marketing resources and services for our sellers (and finding best deal for buyers). Therefore, we are increasingly having to choose what type of clients and who we work with (especially sellers). I urge anyone looking to buy or sell today, to carefully consider the overall strength, market knowledge, personality, experience, and marketing resources of the Realtor that they choose to work with. Additionally, also consider that in today’s market a top producing Realtor (at the top of his/her game) will also be evaluating a potential client’s ability to work with them.

One of the questions my team and I continually ask ourselves is:

“If I were a buyer/seller today, would I work with me?”