Hiring a realtor can be a tricky prospect. It requires a lot of attention to detail and ensuring that your personalities do not conflict with those you are working with. So what do you do if you are moving to an area of the Lower Mainland that your realtor of choice does not service? Get a referral.
It is always a daunting task to find a compatible realtor when it is in your own city, finding one you like based on websites and Google searches is that much more difficult.
If you are just moving from one city in the Lower Mainland to another, more often then not you can get a referral from your realtor to one they recommend.
The advantage to working off a referral is that your realtor will receive a referral fee from the new realtor.
This reinforces the notion that they will have a vested interest in finding you someone you can work with. They will also keep in touch with you to ensure you are satisfied with the referral instead of you having to deal with problems on your own.
While the new realtor will be taking over your file completely, knowing that you came as a referral from someone else will give them the incentive to work diligently to please you.
Referrals make up a large portion of any realtor’s client base and they rely heavily on clients and other realtors referring new buyers and sellers to them.
Finally, dealing with a realtor you have been referred to can simplify things by allowing your current realtor to pass on all the information regarding your likes and dislikes to the new representative.
This will save you, in some cases, days of looking at properties that do not suit your aesthetic style while the new realtor gets a feel for your tastes.
Ryan DeLuca is a realtor with Sotheby’s International Realty Canada, and host of The Real Estate Minute on Novus TV; rdeluca@sothebysrealty.ca.
