How do you decide if you can trust your real estate agent?

Only a small percentage of people in any profession will ever strive to perfect their skills. The rest are happy just learning enough to get by. Please understand this: It does not take much to get licensed. For example, in Florida if you are a high school graduate or have your GED and want to earn your real estate license, you are required to take only 63 hours of classes. You can easily accomplish this by going to class for only one week, from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Sunday. Most real estate students’ goals are to simply get through the boring class, pass the state test, and earn their licenses. Consequently, newly-licensed real estate agents don’t have any practical experience until they find clients to be guinea pigs. All the class training in the world doesn’t compare to actually going through a hundred real transactions with real experiences.            
You may ask, “What about the national real estate companies touting how great and knowledgeable their agents are?” The answer is they’re not all great and knowledgeable. As often as these large real estate offices apparently offer training, it is usually an individual agent’s choice to participate in any of the training classes or programs the real estate brokers offer. No matter what size company your agent is affiliated with, ask him or her about her recent continuing-education classes.
 Most agents are contracted, not employed. A real estate broker typically owns the agency and holds the active licenses of the real estate agents in that office.
The goals and objectives of a real estate broker and a real estate agent are different. The broker’s goal is to bring on board as many agents as possible to help grow the company’s business. A real estate agent’s goal is to bring in as many buyers and sellers as possible to grow his or her individual business.
Although it is in the best interest of the broker to place well-trained agents in the field, the broker’s No. 1 objective is to attract as many agents as possible. Brokers charge monthly fees to their agents; brokers also expect to receive a portion of each agent’s commissions.
Consequently, there are many real estate agents who are just winging it. They’re trying to run their businesses with virtually no business experience. Little of this is taught in real estate schools. This lack of experience is difficult to overcome. Most busy real estate agents don’t make time to help each other. Many view it as helping their competition so they’re not interested in sharing trade secrets. As a result, agents often learn by trial and error – by making mistakes that cost you money.
Also, real estate is a straight commission business: no sales, no income! As a result, many real estate agents start trying to work the business part-time on the weekends. They’re not committed to working the business full-time. This increases the risk of making mistakes because real estate is so detail oriented. There are countless small pieces which need to come together in the right order and in a timely fashion. This can be very difficult to do if you’re working only part-time. Years of practice makes perfect, and you need a lot of practice to become good – let alone perfect.
For more information or a list of mistakes and characteristics which should immediately disqualify a real estate agent from being your coach or representative go to www.MakeNoMistakes.com