Communication, advertising, honesty, are some of the things. There are some very good brokers/agents here that will help you out.

All of those things are certainly necessary. But I think perhaps not enough. Overall, I am happy with my real estate agent from that standpoint.

I don't expect a selling agent to conjure up buyers. I do expect that agent to appropriately list my house, do a flyer and a virtual tour, have a good listing and nice pictures and for my listing to be at major websites. Beyond that I don't think it is the agent's responsibility to come up with buyers.

The one area where I have been less happy with my agent is in giving pricing help. In retrospect, I was clear with the agent from the get go that I was more interested in selling fast than maximizing price. I've said this often. Yet every price reduction has been initiated by me. The comps are hard to interpret (this isn't a cookie cooker subdivision house where comps are easy). I don't think I've been given much guidance on the need to reduce or how much to reduce. I think the agent is used to the fact that houses in this area (even in good times) take a long time to sell and we are getting good traffic. From my standpoint I want to sell faster than the average.

I guess I would want a realtor to be more proactive on pricing and suggesting where to go on pricing rather than leaving it up to me so much to figure this out. It would be different if I was being resistent to reducing price but I am willing to do it but wish I had more guidance and more guidance that meets my need to sell quickly.

That's a good point, kats meow. I sold the last house at the beginning of the housing implosion. I gave my agent a gold star on all the points you did and I didn't expect magic out of her in producing potential buyers. But, she kept clinging to pipe dream comps. At that time when the panic first started, comps went outdated in our market if they were a month old.

What I had over on her was a very good grasp of that particular neighbourhood. I knew who lived there and who was likely to want to live there and what I had to do to make it a reality. When the house did sell, it was exactly at the price point I had pegged it would go for, but I had to suffer through months of market chasing and it was I both times who initiated price reductions.

Yes, I would use her again, because she really worked for her commission and in all other aspects was a good agent. But, if there is a next time around (and there may be one soon) I will be more proactive on the pricing side of it.