The Stephens & Stephens Group - BHGRE Metro Broker

When it was time to sell our house, we wanted to find a good real estate agent. Being a Dave Ramsey fan, I wanted to at least interview some of his Endorsed Local Provider (ELP) agents despite not being pleased with one of his ELPs that we used to purchase our new home. My wife also had a benefit through her employer to help find real estate agents and to contribute a small portion of money to the cost of the transaction. We obtained the contact info for three Dave Ramsey ELPs and two agents through my wife's employer. All else being equal, there were two things of significant importance to us for determining the agent. The first was we wanted fantastic photographs. The second was that our buyer's agent had a habit of pawning us off on one of her assistants. It doesn't do much good to carefully screen your agent if they aren't the one you spend your time working with. So our second important item was to not be pawned off on an assistant. The first agent we screened was with one of the agents referred to us by my wife's employer. This agent said we needed to paint nearly all of our upstairs and our living room and replace all the carpet upstairs. We felt that she acted a bit snooty and it appeared that she couldn't see past the current state of the house. My wife was offended by a 'face' the agent made regarding a settling issue on the sidewalk that we told her we were having fixed. Our house was under renovation at the time and we expected a professional real estate agent to be able to see past that but in our opinion, almost no agent could. This agent also felt our sales price should be lower than what we were wanting. We decided to pass on this agent and of all the agents, she was a personality problem to us. The next agent, a Dave Ramsey ELP, pretty much phoned in the interview. He did arrive and spoke to us, but provided less written materials than any of the other agents we interviewed. Most had printouts of the comps in the area, sales checklists, recommendations on ways to prepare your house, sample photos from their photographers, marketing information, etc., all nicely prepared. This guy had less of that and just didn't do enough to connect with us. So we decided to pass. The next agent, a Dave Ramsey ELP, my wife really liked on the phone and setup an appointment. Due to a commitment already made by the agent, she sent an assistant which we understood. The assistant arrived and at first I didn't feel like she had the right personality for a sales person but she did end up winning me over. She had good materials and was the front runner at this point until she told us what she thought we should try to sell our house for. That was a little jarring and did have a negative affect on our opinion. We didn't write off that agent at that point though because this was the assistant that came out, not the one we contacted that couldn't make it due to her existing commitment. So we decided we wanted the agent we initially contacted to come out but before that could happen, we kept getting pawned off on the assistant and we could tell we would be in the same situation we ended up in with our buyer's agent. Also, if the assistant was the agent we would ultimately be working with, how could I expect her heart to be into selling our house at the price we wanted when I already knew she thought it was worth far less. So, next! The next agent, the last of the Dave Ramsey ELPs, came out with her business partner which might have been her sister. They had good materials and I felt they had the right personalities to be good sales people. They too came up with a price less than we wanted but not way off the mark like the previous agent's assistant. They were our front runner at this point. The last agent, Rebekah Stephens, was the second agent referred to us by my wife's employer. She had good materials, a good sales personality, and while she initially had a lower price than what we wanted, was supportive of asking for more. Through our conversation I felt confident that if we asked for more than she initially thought, she would go to bat for us. The decision between Rebekah and the previous pair of agents was close but in the end, we felt no risk of Rebekah pawning us off on anyone else, and she had higher annual sales by herself than the other pair of agents so we went with Rebekah. And, I'm sure glad we did. During the entire sales process, not one time did she let us down or do anything we felt was not in our interest. She also did things for us that I know a real estate agent doesn't really want to do. No real estate agent in the making dreams of driving over to a client's house to roll in their garbage can at night...but Rebekah did that for us multiple times. She also met with contractors to let them in. She checked on our house for us when the alarm went off. She was a partner during the entire process and a pleasure to work with. Our house was on the market for only nine days before going under contract for our full listing price which was about $15-$20K higher than all other agents assessed our house for, and $33K more than that assistant had assessed it to be worth. And, we didn't have to paint or recarpet like the first agent had told us. In fact, the buyers really liked the color of the living room which the first agent felt we needed to paint. Closing turned out to be a challenge because the day of closing, we had a record snowstorm that prevented us from being able to get there in time. I was super stressed but Rebekah made it happen the very next business day. I really can't think of any point where I think Rebekah could have done a better job. You won't hear me say that often about someone. If you are looking for an agent, do yourself a favor and give her a call. I'm so glad that we did.