What to Look For in a New NYC Agent

I regret to announce that next week Kara Barney, one of the Hoch Groups prized agents, will be leaving us and moving to Arizona. Suddenly I am looking for a new agent. This process has started me thinking about what’s important to look for when hiring someone to market a home. I will be looking for someone with experience; my clients are too important to have an agent learning on the fly. New agents are surprised by all the nuances that exist when dealing with buyers, lawyers and the sellers themselves.

Follow up is also key; unfortunately for some unlucky sellers it is the element hardest to measure that most agents lack. In an office meeting last week my teams manager handed out a sheet of statistics it stated, “48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect. 25% of sales people make a second contact and stop. 12% of sales people only make three contacts and stop. Only 10% of sales people make more than three contacts. 2% of sales are made on the first contact. 3% of sales are made on the second contact. 5% of sales are made on the third contact. 10% of sales are made on the fourth contact. 80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact.” I’m not sure how they came up with those statistics and if a buyer came to visit one of my properties twelve times before they made an offer I would need to debate whether I wanted to do business with them at all. With that said, the chutzpah and organizational skills necessary to follow up with buyers and brokers alike makes all the difference in the world. If I was hiring a broker to sell my home I’d ask, “Do you use a CRM (Client Relationship Management) program? How often do you reach out to the customers and brokers who may be interested in my property?” A great broker will straddle the line between consistent and annoying. Someone who is not interested at all might get irritated but they don’t matter anyway.   They were never going to buy the property. The person who has some interest may be reminded of a unit they saw early in their search and may come around for a second showing because that broker was on their game. Of course this only works if the agent is a good talker, friendly and people enjoy working with them. This is another set of qualities that I’m looking for in a new hire. A great agent has the ability to tell the truth to their clients even when it is not easy to present or hear. Part of our job as brokers is to give an objective analysis to the best of our abilities. In this market often there is news that a seller needs to digest but clearly do not want to hear. The ability to couch that conversation and present it gently is one of our greatest services.

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