Again my pleasure and I feel like I owe you equal thanks. I had put the deal together for another client who got cold feet on what I thought was a great deal. I was fortunate to have you ready to jump into his shoes and help me get the transaction closed.
When reading your post I was thinking how do people really find a good agent they can trust. There are so many agent claiming to be #1, agents who come referred with high regards and beloved internet bloggers. The reality is there is no way to look back at their individual transactions and see how many of their clients lost homes because they were over sold or bought things they should have. No way to determine if the appreciation on one agents sales are better than market averages. I do have one relatively full proof way to evaluate an agent because it is the ultimate measure of their skill. It is pretty damn contraversial of me to post this but you know me well enough that i dont care about that. I will warn you in advance that it will also embarress a very very high percentage of agents but its really comes down to a few simple questions.
What real estate do you personally own right now and have owned over the last 10 years? What are the loan balances on your personal real estate holdings? If the person is underwater or lost homes or lots of money on their own purchases, you need to ask yourself how good is that person? If they cant take care of their own money how can you relie on them to take care of yours?
Almost without exception, the finest agents I know are in great shape with lots of equity. They havent given in to the temptation of refinancing out hundreds of thousands in the name luxury cars, investment properties or even college for their kids. I cant tell you how many agents claiming to be experts in places like Carmel Valley, La Jolla and Scripps Ranch are living in places like North Esconodido in houses that they refied out $400K above their purchase price with option arm loans. I know of highly regarded agents foolish enough to buy shacks in Oceanside during the bubble for $700K that are now worth less than half that. I’m sure they could all come up with good excuses for what happened but……really? really?
So if you want to look under the hood, find out what your agents personal real estate holdings look like. It will be very enlightening in most cases.
