Hire A Local Broker

Do yourself a favor: hire a local broker

The advantage of shopping local has major personal implications when you are thinking of hiring a real estate broker.  In terms of your overall financial and lifestyle goals, NOTHING is more important than where you live and what your house is worth and what it can bring in the current market.

The current real estate market in Pacific Palisades is sophisticated, subtle and intelligent.  Yes, intelligent.  The information that pours forth from “sold” transactions tells the story accurately.  What has sold, how long did it take, what was the selling price?

I am a relentless data tracker.  Many real estate brokers are, but I add a little different element.  I also track the clients, because their story tells the story of the market.

Who is buying?  Where did they live before?  What sort of business?  What age are they?  Who represented them? Why is this important?  Because when you are trying to sell a house, you are really trying to find the buyer.

In focusing on the Riviera section, just as an example, an amazing and surprising set of facts appear.  In fourteen sales year to date, TEN of the buyers came from Pacific Palisades.  Of the ten that moved from another home in the Palisades, SIX already lived in the Riviera.

What I track next are the listed properties that are not selling, don’t sell, stay on the market for months, even years.  Closer inspection reveals that many of these are listed with brokers who don’t have an office in the Palisades, agents who don’t live in Pacific Palisades, agents whose primary business is somewhere else.  Sellers think that they will have some sort of advantage working with a “boutique” agency from fancier areas of town, but the facts tell a different story.

The sales, one after the other, are completed by the “journeymen” agents, the long tenured and hard working day to day agents of the local offices.  The perfect agent is a local one who works for a national and international company with depth and reach into the marketplace.

Sellers, do yourself an important favor.  When deciding who you should list with, take a look at the offices with agents who actually sell property, not just the ones with lots of listings.   Don’t be taken in by the promises made by “out of the area” brokers.