How to find a real estate agent remotely?

June 20, 2018 1:20 PM

We need to sell a house in a relatively rural area outside of a medium city that is a few hours from our house. Searching the internet, I can find lots of agents based in the nearby city but it is very hard to gauge how they good they are and whether they know the more rural area. I don't have much spare energy for this. I can travel out to meet maybe two or three prospective agents but I need help narrowing it down efficiently.
posted by metahawk to Home & Garden (11 answers total)

Can you search either the listing service for that state, or if the state doesn't have one that's public, search Zillow, Trulia, realestate.com, etc, to see which agents are listing properties comparable to yours in the same area? That should give you some idea where to start.
posted by Gnella at 1:44 PM on June 20, 2018

Best answer: On Zillow if you click "Agent Finder" you can enter a zip code and see who has recent sales/listings in a given area. This might narrow your list down a bit.
posted by acidic at 1:44 PM on June 20, 2018

Redfin has a network of their own agents, check to see if there are any in the region.
posted by rhizome at 1:54 PM on June 20, 2018

I find that a personal recommendation is worth a lot in these situations. Is there anyone in the medium city that you can reach out to in order to ask about a good agent?
posted by exogenous at 1:59 PM on June 20, 2018

Outside chance, but if you use USAA as your bank, they have a real estate broker finder service that I used when I had to sell a house in a rural area that I did not live in.
posted by jessamyn at 2:17 PM on June 20, 2018

Best answer: Use Zillow, and drill down to the level of the suggested agents' recent sales on a map. Agents can and will promote themselves as covering many areas, and they can (I think) even buy themselves upwards on the list; but the locations of their most recent sales are hard data, and helpful for you.
posted by Dashy at 2:23 PM on June 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

I would post the name of the city in this thread and ask for recommendations, for starters!
posted by Mid at 2:32 PM on June 20, 2018

If you have a realtor in your town that you like, often they can do this for you. They can make the referral to an office where the property is and contact with an agent to sell the house. That way you have someone who can run interference if you need.
posted by chocolatetiara at 3:06 PM on June 20, 2018

Response by poster: The region is the mountains near Santa Cruz, CA
posted by metahawk at 3:11 PM on June 20, 2018

I would: 1) go on Redfin 2) zoom in on the relevant part of the map 3) go into the filters and turn on SOLD LISTINGS for the last 6 months* (and perhaps filter out apartments and condos) 4) look on those individual listings for seller's agents and see who turns up frequently.**

* sadly they used to go back for 12 months or more, but no longer seem to do so?

** I did this for La Honda (city limits) just now, and Wayne Rivas' name turned up the most frequently. You can do it by map and not by city limits by removing the outline on the map.
posted by oneirodynia at 9:46 PM on June 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Zillow is perfect since you can get a listing of all the real estate agents active in the area with the number of local sales for each. It seems to be inclusive, regardless of whether the agents advertise with Zillow. In this area, the list of active agents (more than one sale) is pretty short - I can take it from here.
posted by metahawk at 9:45 AM on June 22, 2018