Quality real estate agents are not always easy to come by, but bad agents are easy to come by. If you don’t want to put in the time to pick a great real estate agent, here are some tips to quickly find the worst agent for your needs.

Don’t Ask About Their Working Hours

If you work Monday-Friday, 8:00am to 5:00pm, finding a real estate agent who doesn’t work weekends or evenings will leave you with the job of finding time away from the office during the work day to look at homes.

Great real estate agents are available when you are free. They make customer service a priority and want to be there when you have time away from work to look at homes. The worst agents pick their working hours based on what is convenient for them, and that might not always line up with what works for you.

Ignore Their Self-Serving Attitude

We all work to be paid, but we all have different attitudes on customer service and what our top priorities are when working with customers.

Bad agents are only working for a paycheck. They show up late to meetings and press you to buy every home you see just to save time and quickly move on to the next happy hour or paying customer. Great agents will be patient and take the time to understand what you are looking for. They will make finding you the best home their top priority and know that a good income follows good customer service.

Sign an Exclusive Agreement without Interviewing Multiple Agents

Some real estate agents will show you lots of homes on good faith while others want to lock you into an exclusive contract right away.

If you are on the hunt to buy a home, it is a great idea to interview several agents and ask them thoughtful questions about how they work. If you don’t care about finding an agent that is a great fit for your needs, just pick the first one you find and sign an exclusive agreement guaranteeing that you won’t buy a home through another agent even if you are dissatisfied with their service.

Find an Agent through a Discount Agency

When you are choosing an agent, it is always a good idea to look at multiple options and pick the agent that has a schedule, personality, and style that work for you. A very important attribute for agents is experience and professionalism. If you don’t want that, look for a discount agency.

Discount agents can come across like used car salesman. They are pushy, try to lock in sales very quickly, and don’t give you the best information to make the best decisions. Experienced, quality agents are patient, supportive, and give you as much information as possible to make a great home purchase decision.

If you don’t want to be rushed into a hugely important decision about buying a home, skip the discount agent and go with quality. If you don’t care about that, go ahead with a discount agent and pray for the best.

If you are buying or selling a house and are looking to hire a successful real estate agent to help you through the process, take a look at AgentHarvest's list of top-ranking local Realtors in your area. We found these agents by examining their sales track records, awards, rankings, client testimonials and by conducting personal interviews.