Selling your home is a big deal. It pays to have a professional on your side, marketing your home and working with you through negotiations and the final sale.

Here is a fact – it’s the individual agent that will sell your home and not the company they work for

Any agent can work their fanny off for you or they can put your property in the MLS and sit back and let their company do the work. You want the former, not the later. A good agent thinks outside of the box and is always searching for new ways to market their properties. A company has a set outline of places to advertise and how to advertise and they rarely work outside that outline. In combination, this works well but if your agent is not motivated to broaden their marketing horizons, then you are only working with the company regardless of what agent you hire.

Internet advertising is horribly important in today’s market. Everyone is online and looking at homes. The internet has leveled the playing field for small companies like mine. Keller Williams, Century 21 and the big franchises will say their marketing puts you out there more than anyone. That’s not entirely true. If you go on any company website and search for homes in your area, the listings from the smaller companies will also appear. Some of these companies will pay sites like Realtor.com to rank their properties higher in the search results. I do that as well, as an individual agent.

When you want to sell your property, interview the AGENT. See what the AGENT will do for you. Consider the company as their back up. A good agent will be VERY picky about the photos that are used to present your home and the words that are used to describe your home. They will use single property websites, virtual tours and other tools at their disposal to market your home. My last two million dollar sales can be tracked directly to the use of single property websites that I set up. These websites are a must in any marketing plan. Some of the best-selling agents in our area for homes like yours work by themselves or in a small company. They chose to work with smaller companies so they can be more flexible in their marketing plans instead of having their hands tied by a big box franchise when they want to get creative.

When selling your home, my suggestion is always to look at the agent, not the company.