Expectations
What should you expect from your Listing Broker?
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When you are entrusting a broker to market and sell your property you should ask a number of questions about their services. The marketing process involves you providing access to your home to complete strangers who are hopefully professional brokers and their prospective buying clients. Most of the time in Breckenridge and Summit County you do not live here as it is a second home or investment property that you are selling and you rely on your listing broker to make the arrangements for these showings to occur. This is an extremely important aspect of the listing and sale of your property. Security of your home or condo should be paramount to your broker. Ask them what their procedures and security measures are for the showing process?
At Breckenridge Associates, we have spent a lot of money on systems to ensure to the best of our ability the security of your property during the listing and sale process. For more information on property and showing security click here: The Security of Your Property During The Selling Process .
Marketing your property for sale is obviously a significant portion of the process. Your broker should have multiple marketing strategies occurring simultaneously. Ask your broker how marketing a second home or investment property in a ski resort environment differs from a primary residence market. Internet marketing is one area of ever increasing importance and internet marketing strategies to gain an effective return on the marketing dollar are constantly changing. Just saying, 'I have a website," or "I put it on Realtor.com," or another national aggregator is just not good enough.
Magazine advertising is extremely expensive but highly effective if done correctly and is hitting the correct audience of homebuyers or investors. How often will your broker put your listing in a magazine?
Mass mailing campaigns can also be effective and again, where and to whom are they mailing it?
Is your broker a full-time experienced professional? Many times in resort towns, the broker can be a ski instructor or has another job during the winter and tries to sell real estate in the summer or whenever they get the opportunity. You need a full-time professional broker who works for an established company that is open to serve potential buyers or their brokers as much as possible. The company I own, Breckenridge Associates is open 363 days per year, 8.00am to 5.30pm with a full-time staff and all brokers are full-time professionals at the top of their respective markets.  The broker should be highly approachable and cooperative with a "can do," attitude. Once he/she obtains a buyer either directly or through cooperating with another broker and their buyer, their true professionalism should now shine. Negotiating the contract, the hidden strategies and mechanisms used in these negotiations are vital for a successful sale where all parties are happy and satisfied. A real estate contract has serious legal consequences, it is normally the highest financial investment or purchase that you will accomplish in your life. Your broker should work to the highest ethical standards and realize that your are trusting in them. They should always have those thoughts at the forefront of their minds, accept no less! Ask your broker for their credentials and ask what their personal Gross Sales were for the last few years.