An agent who belongs to the MLS cannot show you a home until the two of you sign a written buyer representation agreement, including what their service costs. That flips the order of operations: the vetting now has to happen before the first showing, because you are committing in writing to a specific person at a specific fee. So interview like an employer. These are the five questions to ask a realtor when buying a house, plus a bonus question that protects you if the relationship sours. (The representation-agreement rules here reflect the NAR settlement practice changes in effect as of this episode, 11/26/2024; forms and local requirements continue to evolve, so confirm current practice in your state.)
The reason to be picky is structural. The barrier to entry in real estate is low; in many states the required licensing coursework runs under 70 hours, and no state requires a single supervised transaction between passing the exam and representing you on the biggest purchase of your life. A license tells you almost nothing. The questions below tell you what the license cannot.
There is no magic number, and we want to be careful here, because we know outstanding agents who close 10 deals a year and weak ones riding a mega-team's volume. What you are testing is whether this person is active in the market as it exists today. Contracts change, disclosure forms change, and negotiating a market where homes sit for 60 days is a different sport from negotiating one where everything sells in a weekend. An agent whose last closing was years ago will relearn the game on your transaction.
Watch for one specific dodge: team volume dressed up as personal experience. Mega-teams advertise hundreds of sales, but the face on the brochure mostly handles the luxury listings, and the person actually driving you around may be the newest member working the open house. Read the reviews and see whose name appears in them. If every review praises the team lead and never mentions your agent, you have your answer. Ask for two or three references from closings this agent personally handled, and call them.
Ask how many of those transactions were buyer sides, too. Representing a buyer is its own skill, with multiple negotiations per deal: the offer, the repair requests, sometimes the appraisal. And listen to how they answer more than what they answer. A person who thinks on their feet and gives you a clear, direct response to a tough question is showing you exactly what the listing agent across the table will experience.
An agent should have closed transactions in or near the market you are shopping. Local knowledge is more granular than most buyers expect: in Jeb's own neighborhood, certain smaller floor plans sell at a premium over larger homes nearby for reasons that never show up in a spreadsheet, and an out-of-area agent reading raw comps would misprice them in either direction. The local network matters just as much. An agent who has closed deals with the listing agent across the table gets calls answered, gets straight answers, and gets your offer taken seriously.
There is a real carve-out. If you found the house yourself and want only contract-writing and negotiation, deep neighborhood expertise matters less, and some buyers genuinely only need that. But even then, experience earns its fee. One client came to us having already found his house, needing only the offer written. Walking the property, Jeb told him not to buy it: the foundation was the worst he had seen in 20+ years of selling homes, and no realistic repair budget could fix it. The client wanted a form filled out. The advice not to buy was worth more than the entire fee.
An agent willing to drive three hours to sell you a house probably needs the commission more than you need that house. The good ones refer you to a local expert instead, because they know what they do not know.
Markets flip. For stretches, buyers ask what they can add to make a seller pick them out of a stack of offers. In slower stretches the question reverses: what do we ask the seller for? A lower price, closing costs covered so you stay liquid, or a seller-funded buydown of your rate, and which of those serves you best depends on your cash position and your payment.
A good agent also has a live read on the specific property before you write. Has it been listed one day or 22? Is it one of 14 homes on the market in that neighborhood or the only one? Is it an HGTV-perfect remodel or a project house? Then they connect that read to how much you want it, and open the negotiation accordingly. If the person you are interviewing cannot describe a system for this, they are winging it, and your largest purchase should never be negotiated on vibes.
Anyone can get your offer accepted if price is no object. The job is a fair price on fair terms, and that takes a negotiator, and a plan.
One caution from watching thousands of offers cross the table: some agents get in their own deal's way. An agent who fires back "my client will never take that" without ever calling their client is negotiating on emotion, and it costs their buyer real money. You want someone who stays neutral, carries your position across the table, and comes back with an actual answer.
Escrow is roughly 30 days of deadlines, and the first week is the dense one: deposit in, disclosures reviewed, inspections booked. A professional can hand you a timeline of what happens, when it happens, and what they need from you at each step. Jeb sends buyers a step-by-step presentation up front, with videos walking each stage from offer to keys, precisely so nobody is surprised mid-transaction. The format matters less than the existence of a format. If an agent has no system, they have as many systems as they have clients.
The failure mode is common and miserable: buyers who submitted an offer three days ago and have no idea whether anyone responded, because their agent went dark. You should never wonder where you are in the process. Ask how they communicate, how often, and who covers when they are unavailable.
Compensation is negotiable and always has been; what changed post-settlement is that it goes in writing before you tour. Expect a direct answer covering the fee, what service that fee buys (some agents now run tiered models, from write-the-offer-only up to full service), and the plan if a seller declines to pay it: you cover it, you negotiate it into the deal, or you decide together whether that house still works. In practice, sellers frequently still agree to pay buyer-agent compensation as a deal term, and the topic ends up a non-event. It becomes a non-event because it was settled up front. We describe the agreement as a prenup: you decide how the money is handled before emotions and deadlines arrive.
We wrote a full breakdown of who pays the buyer agent commission now, including the four ways it gets handled in real transactions. Read it before this conversation so you can hold up your end.
Before you sign, ask what happens if you want out. Many buyer representation agreements include a provision letting either side end the relationship; confirm yours does and get the mechanics in writing. Lock-in games are real. A seller in Massachusetts reached out to Jeb recently wanting to switch agents; her current agent would withdraw the listing from the MLS but refused to cancel it, which blocked her from relisting with anyone else. That is a vindictive move and a terrible way to do business. The time to protect yourself from the buyer-side version is at the interview, before you sign, while you still have all the leverage.
The answers matter, but the interview matters more. How an agent handles five direct questions about their own business previews how they will handle a listing agent's pushback with your money on the table: their clarity, their composure, their willingness to say "I do not know, let me find out" instead of bluffing. Hire the one who answers plainly, on their feet, without a flinch.
The agent is half of your team. Apply the same discipline on the money side with our companion list of questions to ask your mortgage lender. And if you want the full process, from readiness through keys, laid out before you interview anyone, the free live Blueprint workshop is where we teach it.
Get a local expert agent in your corner
Tell us where you're looking and we'll match you with a local expert agent Jeb has personally vetted, someone who knows your neighborhoods and how to win in them. They'll negotiate hard for you, keep you from overpaying or losing the home you want, and have your back from the first showing to keys in hand. Need the mortgage side handled too? Done.
Find my agent →Five cover most of it: how many transactions they closed in the last 12 months and how many were buyer sides; what areas they specialize in; how they help buyers compete in different offer situations; what their process and communication look like from offer to close; and how their compensation works if the seller will not pay it. Add a sixth: the cancellation terms of the representation agreement.
There is no magic threshold, but you want someone actively closing deals in the current market, not someone whose last sale happened under different conditions and older contract forms. A steady 10 deals a year from a hands-on agent can beat a mega-team's hundreds, since the team's newest member may be the one actually representing you. Verify the count is personal, through reviews and references, rather than borrowed from a team.
Yes, with any agent who participates in the MLS, which is nearly all of them. The agreement states the agent's fee as a specific number, and the agent cannot collect more than it says. That is exactly why the interview comes first: you are hiring in writing. Read the fee, the term, and the cancellation provisions before you sign anything, and ask about anything unclear.
Often yes, if the agreement includes a cancellation provision, which is why you confirm those terms before signing. Some forms let either party end the relationship at any time; others bind you for the full term unless the agent releases you. Ask directly what happens if you are unhappy, and get the answer in writing. An agent confident in their service will not need to trap you.
Yes, for most buyers. A local agent knows why one street trades at a premium, which floor plans command more, school and neighborhood nuances, and, just as valuable, the listing agents on the other side of your offers. If you only need contract writing and negotiation on a home you found yourself, locality matters less, but say so explicitly and price the service accordingly.
Through the fee stated in your written representation agreement, which is negotiable. At closing it can be paid by you directly, by the seller as a negotiated term of the deal, through a seller concession, or by some combination. Sellers frequently still agree to cover it, but nothing requires that, so agree on the plan with your agent before you start touring homes.