Personally I think you would be better off going with a new agency, which is what we did.

My wife and I like our new agent since she is everything that our old agent wasn't.

Our old agent let his assistant handle everything so I don't think he really knew what was going on.

Our new agent has handled everything herself so she is very familar with our property. She also has put a lot more effort into marketing the house.

She put in a talking house and a vitural tour of the yard and house. She recored the talking house herself, but hired someone to do the vitural tour.

The best thing I like about her is that she has involved us totally from the beginning with everything. She has spent a lot of time with us, explaining things and showing us what she is going to do. She also let us approve the pictures that she was going to put on the Internet.

She is high tech and uses the Internet for marketing.

We also really like her since she is upbeat, cheerful, hardworking,and positive. If she can't sell this house, I doubt anyone can.

We have had one showing so far, but it has only been on the market for less than a week with her though.

Talk to 3 or 4 realtors over the phone and ask what they would do to sell your house. Then have the ones you want to talk to come out. Make out a list for the questions you want to ask her or him.

We did that with our present realtor and she went right down the list and explained everything and answered all the questions.

So be careful and choose a really good agent since there are a lot of average and poor quality ones out there. If you don't get a warm cosy feeling about that agent, then go on to the next one.

In this bad market, you need a first class agent if you are going to be able to sell your house.

Here is a quote from another post about REMAX link to post where it was taken from is below.

Time, I don't know Roselvr's reasons for recommending RE/MAX but Im happy that she did and I suspect that she was happy with her agent. I am a RE/MAX agent. There are quite a few differences, I will give you a couple.
All the websites of the companies are not the same. RE/MAX actually has a search that competes with Realtor.com. This is fairly new, (within the last 6 months) and is already blowing realtor.com out of the water in some areas. Its like an MLS, it shows all listings from all companies, however, RE/MAX listings get shown first :) A few companies have since tried to do something similar but Im not sure how successful they have been. I know RE/MAX spent 30 million dollars to launch this program.

The differences with RE/MAX agents are:, for the most part, they are all experienced agents. New agents typically don't do the RE/MAX system because you pay an upfront desk fee rather than loosing half your commission to your broker. A REMAX agent pays that monthly fee, but retains 95% of their commissions so it pays to be productive and successful. How that helps you is, they have a real vested interest in getting your property sold. In traditional real estate, it doesnt cost the agent anything if you don't sell because they don't have to put any money out of pocket. When your house sells, they get paid. They haven't spent money on advertising, their broker has. This is the reason its hard to get an agent to do what you want them to do. Their broker has to approve it, and most likely you are on a rotating schedule for ads. A REMAX agent doesnt have to answer to the broker, they do their own advertising, negotiate their own commission, have their own market base and run their business as their own. In essence, its like running a business within a business. You will never hear, "my broker won't allow me". It is the agents business and as long as they arent doing anything illegal, they are free to be as creative as they want.

Im not saying that traditional real estate offices are bad, just that RE/MAX agents have a track record and would not be a RE/MAX agent if they are dabblers or part timers in the business.

Seems to me in this case that using the same broker office wouldn't be the same thing as a traditional real estate office.

I'd say interview the agents and see what meshes with what you expect as well as works with your personality. Also make sure you check and see who you will be talking to when you have a problem or have questions. An assitant or the agent themselves. An assitant may not necessarily be bad, but make sure your personality work with them too if that is the case.

I would also ask for references. Current clients and recent sales.

Here is a link that might be useful: Post I took the quote from

Great feedback, THANKS!!

Realtor just knocked on the door and gave me back the warrenty deed, my key and a letter to sign to cancel the listing on the MLS and fax to her. She said the other day when I found another agent she'd cancel, that way there would be no gap, but if she gives me the key back...well, so much for no gap - haha

"Im not saying that traditional real estate offices are bad, just that RE/MAX agents have a track record and would not be a RE/MAX agent if they are dabblers or part timers in the business."

Nice propaganda, but not true. Nothing against RE/MAX, my daughter is a broker at one.
Just make sure to ask the right questions when interviewing an agent.
I have worked at C-21, CB and currently at an independent brokerage and all offered the same as RE/MAX (CB & C-21 did not lack an internet presence for their day and time).

Berniek, I have also worked at c/21 and Coldwell Banker. I never said those offices didnt offer a similar system to SOME of the more successful agents as RE/MAX, however, it is not the norm. IT IS the norm for RE/MAX. There is no propaganda in the truth, and YES, no matter what office or agent anyone chooses, they need to ask the right questions.

"IT IS the norm for RE/MAX."
There is no norm of all the RE/MAXES in my state, where RE/MAX was started in the early 1970's. Just like there is no norm for all CB offices.
RE/MAX offices here offer a wide range of compensation plans and my daughter has been a broker/in the RE biz less than 2 years, so, compensation, performance and experience are never the norm in any given RE office.
If you equate "norm" with a "value", this discussion will become very subjective and meaningless.

I forgot to mention that our new agent is with REMAX.

Check out the link below because these days you need to be sure that whoever you choose has a decent realtor.com listing. The post below gives you tips on what to look for.

If you know people that sold recently, ask for their experience with the agent they used. I know 2 people that used one of the local C21 offices (not in my town but the next town over) and neither were happy. I dislike their web site; things like photo sizes and layout of the pages. The web site is important to me as a lot of people use them to look for houses.

Weichert used to have a lousy web site but recently redid it. The Remax agent I use has a few URL's and is able to show more listings due to it. I've used her web site and choose to save all of my houses on her site. If I find something via realtor.com that her site didn't pick up, I will search via MLS and still use her site to view the info instead of going to the listing agents site.

Try out Caldwell Bankers site also, in addition to the other majors to see how they work. Do searches as a buyer to give it a test run. This can also help you decide who to use. There are features at CB that I dislike, I find searching and saving time consuming.

An agent having a good, user friendly site are important, so it should be a consideration. You also want to ask about the contract, what is the norm for the agent. Will they give you a 3 month listing or a 6? Will they let you out of the contract if you are not happy? Will they expect you to pay for advertising if you break the contract? When you interview agents, ask for their input about your house. Do you need to pack stuff away or move furniture around. Do you need to paint. Also find out what the days on the market is, and if they even have a clue in this market. Have them look to see what's sold and in what price range. In my area, there are few houses selling (from what I can see) and they are $225K and under. Unfortunately, we are priced just above that, and not by much. Houses over $225k aren't getting traffic. What stinks is that the houses for $225k are no where near ours in value but people would rather buy low and improve on their own. I'm talking even painting, as these sellers haven't done anything and still have faux/real brick and paneling.

Good luck finding the new agent. You have to decide if you are comfortable using someone in the same office. How much will you actually step into the office? Chances are for the most part, not much; so running into agent #1 may not be a problem. As to the assistant... I don't care for it. I signed on with the agent, not the assistant and I expect the agent to be able to answer my questions. My agent just took on an assistant, so far it's been about 2 weeks and ok. My agent is still my main contact, and I like the assistant but may be upset if my agent started passing me off on her with emails & questions.

Here is a link that might be useful: Realtor.com listings and pics by Terriks

Berni, check with your daughter. The whole premise of RE/MAX is very different from traditional Real Estate companies. It is about running your own business and not about running the company business. It is very different. There may be some RE/MAX offices that do things more towards the traditional way of real estate, however, the company was not started that way and the majority of offices are not run like traditional real estate.

If you want to go to the RE/MAX site, you can read all about it. It tells you that RE/MAX agents are more experienced and educated and sell more real estate than any other company in the world. Its a fact. Typically, it is not a place for new agents, that doesnt mean a new agent can't go there if they want to. That would be discrimination :)

"It tells you that RE/MAX agents are more experienced and educated and sell more real estate than any other company in the world. Its a fact."

I would expect it to say that, but it's not true.
Realogy/NRT (CB, C-21, ERA) sells more RE, which is not surprising when you have 250,000 agents vs. 120,000.
http://www.realtor.org/rmomag.nsf/files/0707_TOP100.pdf/$FILE/0707_TOP100.pdf

We got our second house showing this morning. This is not bad since the house has been on the market for less than a week.

Our vitual tour is also on our site now so that will help.

It is nice to see that we are getting some showings since we got a new realtor that really is working hard to sell our house.

Goodness! It sounds like a lot of opinions are being used as propaganda. I have no expertise on the quality of any brokerage company in the U.S.

But If anyone states that all Re-Max agents display a sense of integrity and never like to their clients, I can dispute that fact by citing the example of the realtor/con artist that I hired a few years ago. (Re-Max)

All potential sellers must evaluate the individual and do their homework. Choosing a company is not going to get you the best.
Susan