What more to look for in selecting an agent to exclusively list and market your property?  A seller is also going to be signing up with a specific brokerage firm.  So another thing that I recommend Miami Beach sellers look for – the overall strength and international marketing reach of the brokerage firm that the individual real estate agent is affiliated with.

One of the reasons that my team and I work with Fortune International Realty is that this is a financially strong company that has represented well over 50 large-scale national and international developers, with over 1,000 individual agents, with international marketing resources in Europe and most especially in South America.  Fortune International Realty is also a locally based company (with Argentine family origins), that has the resources and management expertise that understands unique local market needs and challenges.  So in interviewing prospective listing agents, my recommendation is to also inquire about the Brokerage firm- ask your agent why they work with their specific brokerage firm.  Keep in mind that you will be hiring the company that he is affiliated with, along with the agent.

Having worked in real estate for over 15 years successfully marketing and selling properties in the Miami area, and most especially in Miami Beach, it’s critical to be up to date on the latest marketing trends.  One of the key attributes that I recommend sellers look for in a potential listing agent is the ability and experience to work with both old (a.k.a. traditional sales methods and tools) and “new” technologies.

Examples of traditional real estate sales / marketing:

• Calling prospective buyers and cooperating brokers
• Networking / talking up your listed properties
• Qualifying buyers
• Attention to details (such as home square footage, contract specifics, professional photos, etc.)
• Returning phone calls on a timley basis
• Conducting yourself professionally (and training your team to operate at the same level)
• Pricing the property right and providing market feedback to sellers (CMA analysis)
• Traditional press releases for high profile sellers

Examples of “New” marketing techniques / skills:

• Listing sindication (across many web databases and real estate portals around the world).
• Website Optimization (having an SEO professional market your properties)
• Having multiple websites specialized in different single family neighborhoods and specific condominium buildings
• Overall traffic / rankings of the listing agent / broker on Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc
• Use of video and appropriate sindication to Google Video, Yahoo, Bing Video, YouTube, etc.
• The use of blogging and different SEO techniques to promote a specific property and drive traffic
• Mass email databases and copy-writing that is optimized to draw interest / traffic / attention to a specific property

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?”