Finding a Realtor

Doug and I have absolutely no experience at buying or selling a home.  We sold our home in Lisle over twenty-five years ago when we bought this one.  We really didn't like the realtor in Illinois.  She met with us, told us a higher than average price that she could get for our house and then let us know immediately after we singed with her that we had listed it too high.  We have never wanted to be in that position again.  The only other experience we have had was when we tried to sell our home just after Meg was born.  The realtor then was just way too laid back for us.  Thankfully, it all worked out as we ended up staying here and adding on which we ended up liking a lot better than any new house that we had looked at previously.

With our limited experience in mind, Doug and I had talked a lot about how we would find a realtor.  We knew many people in town in the realty business, but none that we would want to work with for various reasons.  We asked one of our friends for a recommendation.  She had one that she liked right away, but Doug didn't think that person would be a good fit for us.  We didn't want to keep asking people, so we had to come up with a different plan.

I decided to look online for ideas on how to pick a realtor.  There were reviews for ones in our area, but nothing that really helped.  We had received a postcard in the mail from a local realty company that had sold homes in our neighborhood.  I looked at her website.  It was impressive, but we still weren't sure what to do.  That's when I came up with an idea.  I went on Zillow and changed the filter search to "homes sold in Syracuse in the last twelve months."  Sixty-five homes instantly showed up on the map.  

I first tried to just read through the selling agents to see if I could find a pattern.  There were just too many to do it that way.  I decided instead to make a spread sheet of each of the homes, their selling price and the listing agents.  I even colored coded the different realtors that sold two or more homes in Syracuse.  It was very easy to soon see a pattern.  The realtor who had sent us a postcard had sold seven homes in Syracuse out of the 65 I looked at on Zillow.  Her office had sold another 6 as well.  Thus, Doug called her first thing yesterday morning and set up a meeting with her for the end of February.  I was excited and nervous all together.  Hopefully, it all goes well and we will have found our realtor.