How to Find a Great Hawaii Real Estate Agent
Look in the same place you would to find a good attorney, stockbroker, insurance agent, or other professional. In other words, try to get recommendations from people you trust (relatives, friends, other professionals, even a new employer). Use the phone book yellow pages or newspaper advertising only as a last resort. As in a barrel of apples, there are good and bad agents in real estate. The vast majority is good, but if you run into a bad apple, it can cost you a great deal.
Personal recommendations should be your first choice. If you liked a Hawaii Kai real estate agent with whom you worked in the past and are moving to a different area, often that first agent will be able to recommend a good agent to work with in your new area. (The old agent will be eager to help, since he or she could get a piece of the commission when you buy, particularly if you are dealing with a national chain!) The old agent will probably recommend a broker agent who has taken advanced training, such as the courses offered by the National Association of Realtors.
If you have relatives or friends in the new area, most will have had some dealings with agents and can steer you to those they liked. Usually these recommendations are straightforward, but not necessarily. Years ago, some agents used to tell their former clients that they would give them something like a hundred silver dollars for a recommendation. Today, however, with commissions running into the tens of thousands of dollars, most people won’t be looking to make a hundred bucks to recommend someone they consider less than reputable.
Finally, you may already have a professional relationship with someone in the new area—an attorney, insurance agent, accountant, and employer. My experience is that generally speaking, good people tend to hang out together. If there’s a professional whom I like and trust, I tend to rely on that person’s recommendation.
If all else fails, you can attempt the old method of picking a large, active-looking office that has lots of agents. Walk in and ask to speak to the broker. This is important because in almost all offices, agents, particularly those who are less successful, will pull “counter time” or “up time.” This means they must stay in the office and wait for potential clients who walk in over the transom. If you take the current “up” or “counter” agent, it’s the luck of the draw.
But, if you ask to speak to the broker, you’ll be sent to the person who actually runs the office (or helps run it in a big office). Then, simply ask for the name of their number one agent, the one who has sold (not listed) more property in the last year than any other.
The broker may chuckle at your brashness, but it’s a straightforward question and chances are you’ll be given a straight answer. When you have the name, call that person. (Chances are that agent is out in the field and not sitting around the office.)