Know Your Real Estate Agents in Colorado
This is something I thought was worth discussing, as I’m running across more and more agents who are either new or don’t work real estate on a full time basis. And that often creates a lot of needless work on the more active agents like myself to essentially watch over the deal and make sure everything closes okay.
It’s very important that when you are interviewing a real estate agent to help buy or sell a property for you, a thorough interview takes place to find out what their experience level is and how active they truly are. Real estate agents who don’t work in this industry on a full-time basis may be doing you a disservice as they often lack the current knowledge and skill set to help you with a successful real estate transaction. This applies to real estate agents in Colorado as well.
Why Hiring a Professional Real Estate Aids Your Success
Here are some stats to help show why the Denver market is oversaturated with real estate agents and why hiring an active professional is critical to your success:
1. Number of Real Estate Agents
Statewide, there are currently 44,000 licensed agents. Of those, around 21,000 are active in the marketplace, or a little less than half. In the Denver MLS known as RE Colorado over the last 12 months, there were 64,835 real estate transactions. Now before I give you these stats, remember that the Denver MLS won’t include the entire State and these stats also won’t include new home sales with people who used a real estate agent or the few inside transactions that take place.
I’m just using this for a quick analysis that will hopefully help demonstrate my point. If we were to take the 44,000 agents with licenses in the State and spread that out over the number of real estate transactions in RE Colorado over the last 12 months, that would amount to 1.47 deals per year on either the buy or sell side. If we strip that down a little and disperse those stats to the more active agents, that would amount to 3.08 deals per year on either the buy or sell side.
2. Average Number of Deals a Real Estate Agent Closes
I can tell you from experience that a full time agent working should be averaging much more than 1-3 deals per year to make this work for them. Now there are some agents who work the luxury market that only have to average a few deals per year, but I can tell you that represents a very small percentage of the marketplace. I heard a stat that said that only the top 5% of agents do 10+ deals per year like myself, which would represent about 2,200 agents out of the 44,000 currently licensed agents.
3. Activity of the Real Estate Agents
What this should be telling you is that there are an awful lot of agents out there who are not very active and/or who do this on a part time basis and may be working another job. Now I don’t know about you, but if I going to hire a legal professional or doctor to do some critical work for me, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to be hiring one that only does it part time or hardly at all. Staying active keeps you up to speed on the current environment and keeps your skill set sharp.
4. Real Estate Transactions and Testimonials
Check them out online. For example, if you were to explore me online you would find a reputable website, Zillow/Trulia and other non-MLS presence, social media outlets with Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter/Google Plus as well as finding testimonials with past clients about their success and satisfaction with my services. I would imagine the other good agents out there will have the same type of online presence as well. Whether it is me or some other agent you are considering, I would check them out to make sure they will meet your expectations with any upcoming real estate transactions you are considering.
All good things to consider when looking at hiring a real estate professional, and I hope you found this helpful. There are good agents out there, but doing your homework ahead of time will go a long way in helping you hire the right person. Don’t let some of the bad agents out there ruin your conception of what its like to work with a good professional like myself.
