What everyone needs to know about hiring the broker you want representing you: A good real-estate agent will help in selling your house fast. Real-estate agents should have enough contacts and tools that can be used creatively to close the deal. An agent should have knowledge about your neighborhood and its market history. A good agent helps sellers analyze the market, set a listing price, market the property, hold open houses, juggle offers, handle contracts and trust funds, and negotiate with the buyer’s agent. We are the master negotiators, but most importantly is the confidentiality handling of the volumes of paperwork. When I started this 30 years ago, I could sell your home with a one page document, today it can be up to 40 pages! The last and most important thing to do when choosing an agent is to make sure and check their references, background and experience. Most all of this can easily be done on the Internet. As a recommendation if you find multiple felony convictions for theft or fraud and your screen starts flashing because they are on the Americas top 10 wanted you might want to avoid them. I thank God on a regular basis that YouTube, face book and twitter weren’t around to record some parts of my youth. And, I’m lucky enough, that most of my friends from my past are old and most can’t even remember what they had for dinner last night. I’m thinking if anything does surface from my past I can always just say, I don’t recall, seems to work well for most politicians.