3 Red Flags to Look for When Choosing a Real Estate Agent

Lackluster Online Presence

In this day and age, any real estate agent looking to compete should, at the very least, be established with a visible online presence. A real estate agent’s website should feature all of the listings they’ve sold, the years of experience they have accrued, and various past client testimonials that current prospective clients can sort through in order to make their choice properly. If the real estate agent is equipped with only a landing page showing little to no information, they are seriously hurting their business prospects, and this is a sign of unprofessionalism that no prospective client should ignore. Furthermore, if a real estate agent is nowhere to be found online at all, the client should effectively move on to their next option without wasting any time.

Abundance of Bad Reviews

If the real estate agent in question does indeed have an adequate online presence, the prospective client should take advantage of this by reading through the various client testimonials that are displayed on the site. These reviews are there to provide new clients with a consensus on how the real estate agent works and what results can be expected from his or her services. If the reviews immediately paint a clearly negative picture of the real estate professional, there’s no reason to commit to his or her services when there are other competent, well-lauded agents out there. Additionally, if the agent has a fully functioning site but does not choose to display his or her client reviews, they are probably hiding negative testimonials from current prospective clients, which means they aren’t worth buyers’ or sellers’ time.

Lying

Since buying or selling a home is such a significant transaction in a person’s life, it needs to be moderated by the right real estate agent. “Right”, in this case, means that the agent does not lie to the client, ever. With all of the homes for sale in San Diego and all of the honest and openly communicative real estate professionals working in the market, lying real estate professionals have no necessary claim on anyone’s business. While it might be tempting for homeowners to shrug off a first instance of lying as a one-off, it’s strongly advised that they terminate the working relationship with the agent and move onto someone new as soon as the agent is caught lying about something significant to the project. In more cases than not, if the agent lies once about something, they are likely to lie again in the future. This is an incredibly shady practice on behalf of a real estate professional, and one that need not be tolerated by clients.