When interviewing ask questions like;

-         How do you determine the list price of a home? (hint, the seller should be determining the list price, the agent should be advising you in that process)

-         If there are two offers for my home what advice would you give me? (There are a whole host of options available. See if they are limiting your options or giving you a range of choices. Are they going to be a good counselor for you?)

-         If a buyer makes a low offer what advice would you suggest to me about how best to counter? (you are trying to see how they handle different situations)

Here are several subjects that you can use when interviewing.

Marketing and advertising: Agents advertise homes for sale and hold open houses for several reasons:

-         To increase the brand awareness of the agents

-         To get more listings for the agent.

-         To troll for new home buyers.

-         So the seller will feel that the agent is doing something to market the home.

-         To help sell the house being advertised or the home being held open.

When interviewing an agent ask about their marketing plan and what are the most important aspects to selling the home. In reality they are:

-         Pricing. This is the most important part of marketing your home. What is the agent's strategy to pricing?

-         Staging the home. Making sure the home is ready to sell is important. Does it show well? Have the negative issues been addressed? This is another reason to actually go and view the homes you are competing with. It will be clear about what you need to do to make your home show better.

-         Listing information and how your home is positioned. Ask the agent about the strong points and weak points of your home and how these will be dealt with in the sales process.

-         Internet exposure. As soon as your home is on the Realtor MLS system it will be on all brokers web sites. This is another reason why the listing information is critical, especially the remarks section. Some agents will talk about the strength of their own web sites. Some will believe their own press and tell you their sites can accomplish more then they really do.

Some questions to ask are:

-         What are the most important aspects to marketing a home?

-         I'm assuming agents will tell me about great marketing items that are really designed to get more business. What can you tell me about these kinds of marketing tools?

-         How important is advertising the home? What forms of advertising are effective?

-         How is advertising impacted by the internet?

It's ok for brokers and agents to have various marketing tools to grow their business but it's not ok for them to tell you that they are effective tools to sell your home. Why would a buyer watch a Sunday morning home show when they can go on line and find the entire mls at their finger tips?

Is your agent protecting your best interest?

The job of a listing agent is to not just market your home but to protect your best interest.  Here are two main points of a transaction and some issues to consider:

-         Showings. During this period the agent should protect the flow of information about you. Ask them how they answer questions about the seller and timing. See how aware they are about the importance of this and if they have an appropriate way of handling it. For instance I would tell a buyer agent my seller hasn't given me permission to speak about why they are moving or the timing. "I know the seller is  flexible and willing to meet the buyer's needs. Let us know what your issues are and I will see if I can take care of them".

Questions you can ask are:

1.      Explain to me the advice you give sellers about the showing process.

2.      How do you go about getting feedback?

3.      If the home is taking long to sell what courses of action do you suggest?

4.      What do you say to other agents when they ask about why we are selling and what our timing is?

5.      How do you protect the flow of information about us so the buyer doesn't perceive us as being more motivated?

-         The offer and negotiations. See how the agent handles the negotiations process and what strategies they will try to use. Ask for examples of deals that went well and those that didn't and why not. (No matter how good the agent is they will make mistakes and will not win all the time. You are trying to find out how honest they are).

Tell me some examples of  how you negotiate for the seller.

1. What are some negotiating strategies that you try to use. 
2.  Tell me about a recent success in negotiations.
3. Tell me about a situation when you didn't win te negotiations. 
4. Do you have an example of a mistake you made during a transaction and how you dealt with it?
5. Explain to me how contingencies work in a contract and how you try to protect my best interest.  
6. What items in my home are likely to be problem areas? 
7. What advice do you give before a home inspection takes place?