When in the chronological process of selling a home do you actually hire a realtor and sign the realtor agreement?
Let’s say we want our home to go on the market March 1, typically how far in advance to we hire a realtor? (We’ve never sold a home before.)
Don’t hire anyone until you interview a handful. In the hopes of getting your business, Realtors will gladly do a complementary walk through your house to give you some ideas as to what needs to be done to make your house marketable and to get avoid price quickly. Their opinions will vary greatly. Some will say yo have to gut the place and do a complete reno, some will point out some cosmetic touches.
I highly recommend start the interview process now. If every realtor will tell you you need to do X, and the estimate is that X takes two months to do, start doing it right away. Depending on how hot your real estate is, contractors may be unavailable for quite some time. In my area, some jobs get scheduled two or more months out. Then there are the holidays… If your house is in good shape, hiring a realtor can be done a month or even less before putting your home on the market. We signed a contract with our realtor 2 weeks before our house hit the MLS, but it took us good 2 months to declutter, clean, paint, and do some cosmetic work like changing the gold brass door hardware to satin nickel.
BunsenBurner: we’re at the stage where we know the realtor we want to hire.
I thought I knew, til I interviewed a few. Just because you know someone socially or your neighbors used them doesn’t mean they are the right person to sell your house. Be sure you talk to at least a few who sell homes in the general price range of your house in your neighborhood.
Ah ok. Here, Realtor contracts are usually of limited duration, 2-3 months, renewable. I would not hire a realtor now. February would be a good time to do so. I have not seen a realtor who was too busy to take on another client. 
You might consider selling your home on your own which would save paying commission to a selling broker. In many areas, you can list your home in the MLS for under $1,000 (it varies by geography). You run your own open houses (or not) and marketing. But simply having your listing in the MLS should generate traffic, if your home is desirable and priced correctly (do research to see sales prices of similar sold homes in your area). We sold our home in a major city and it was fairly easy, but did require effort and focus. We did pay the purchaser’s broker 2% commission, which was standard in our area, and something that we noted in the MLS listing. Our attorney also handled the paperwork.
Ask your prospective realtor how much lead time a photo shoot would require. You probably want to do your photos right before listing, because photos taken a few months out can make the listing look “stale.” Even in my neck of the woods folks would steer clear of homes with photos showning snow on the ground… when looking for RE in June.
Also, ask the realtor about staging and what it would require. You can clear the house and do prep work without hiring any realtors.
Realtors will usually try to get a 6 month contract but, as pointed out above, you can sign for a shorter period of time.
When we were ready to put our relatively high priced home on the market, two realtors we called and left messages for (with address and details of our home) didn’t even return our calls! I couldn’t believe it.
I agree that in a busy market it can be difficult to get some realtors to respond.
Then those are not the folks you want to work with. You would not want someone who does not have a backup person either. As far as working a specific area… YMMV. Our realtor never sold a house in our old area, but we hired him because he was responding to our texts and emails quickly and had a great personality. We also tested him by having him help us buy our House2 which was not an easy task.
I believe a 3 month contract is standard here in my neck of the woods. We sold two houses and bought three, and every time the 90 days was the default in the form.
@gunnerz I am a real estate agent in ME/NH and imagine that if you are already sure of who you want to use for an agent, then the timing should be dictated by he/she telling you how long they need to get things ready on their end. They should be lining up professional photography and getting the listing ready to put out as many places as possible, maybe doing some “coming soon” marketing too for the weeks leading up to it going “live” in order to build some anticipation. With that said, I normally am in good shape to have the listing paperwork at least a month prior to when I know my seller wants it on the market. Although areas around the U.S. can vary, make sure that the agent you choose is actually going to show up for each showing as well and not just throw a lockbox on your home. Pick someone who is a good communicator and you trust and will work hard for you (even if he/she is not the number one agent in your area) and you will not regret it. Good luck!
It will probably be a few years before I sell my home, but I plan to notify all the neighbors (possibly via door flyers) that I’m about to put my home on the market in case they have friends or family who want to live in my neighborhood. I love realtors (my mom was one for years) but would sell by owner, avoiding realtor fees and inconvenience of showing, if a buyer was easy to find.
Maybe better to take photos now than in March. One thing you get out of talking to various realtors is (1) opinions on how to price your house, and (2) opinions on what to fix. Also — the realtor I picked had an inexpensive handy man who was a huge help in fixing some items that needed to be done.
Photos that don’t match the season signal to the buyer that the house has been listed before and did not sell. There is nothing worse than having a “stale” listing.
Regarding when to take the photos…I think you have to follow the advice of your realtor. Ours pushed me to get the photos done in early October even though we weren’t listing until February. We were selling a NJ home with a very large deck and acreage. Snow covered pictures weren’t going to showcase the property well at all. The photographer got some great pictures including a lot of good ones with a drone at a time when the property looked especially nice.
We sold our first home by owner. We got an offer in June, probably the prettiest month of the year here with the rhododendrons in bloom. I don’t think it was coincidental! When we put our current house on the market eventually, we’ll list it in late May, I think.
We just sold our last home this past spring. We started working with our agent a month prior to it going on MLS. She and her team did a “coming soon” marketing blitz two weeks prior to the listing being active. On day one of the active listing, a Friday, she did an evening open house w/cocktails and heavy appetizers. We had over a dozen families come back for private showings the following day and a full price, clean offer in hand by Sunday.
That’s true. The realtor we eventually went with called me back within 30 minutes, and had already driven by our house to take a look and had pulled up info from the tax appraisal office so that she could speak to us intelligently about the property.
I also agree that it’s wise to interview more than one realtor. One realtor came over and gave us her spiel, and when DH said he would get back with her after he had concluded two more scheduled interviews with othe realtors, got mad at him for not immediately signing her up! After she left, we could only look at each other and laugh. DH said “Well, she made that an easy decision.”