You need the right real estate agent in buyer's market

In much of the country, house sellers have gone from strutting to sulking. Buyers now have the advantage in a lot of markets, as millions of "for sale" signs rust forlornly in front yards.

For sellers, the cyclical return to a buyer's market means that it's important to choose the right real estate agent. Experts offer some advice:

Weigh the pros and cons of selling it yourself. "You have to be crazy to start out with an agent in a market that's a buyer's market," says Colby Sambrotto, chief operating officer of ForSaleByOwner.com. "It's downright financially irresponsible to start out with a 6 percent agent."

You might decide that you need all the help you can get in selling the house.

"With the market right now, the sellers are much less inclined to go FSBO than they were before," says Jim Merrion, regional director of RE/MAX Northern Illinois.

Find and interview would-be agents. If you decide to hire an agent, find and interview at least two candidates. You might want to start out by calling an agent who has been "farming" the neighborhood -- mailing postcards, driving a distinctive vehicle.

"It's a tried-and-true technique, and that's good. The only thing is that just because this agent chose your neighborhood doesn't necessarily mean you should choose that agent," says Elizabeth Razzi, author of "The Fearless Home Buyer" and the forthcoming (in February 2007) "The Fearless Home Seller."

Another way to find an agent is to go the indirect route. Pam O'Connor, chief executive of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, suggests calling a real estate brokerage and asking for the relocation director, who feeds corporate leads to the broker's agents.

Relocation directors "have a lot of good sense of who does a good job and who does not," O'Connor says.

Assess candidates' knowledge and experience. Merrion suggests asking job candidates for some hard facts that a good agent should know by heart: the average time on market in the neighborhood and in the metro area, and the average time that agent's houses have been on the market.

Get a communicator. When interviewing agents, tell them how often you want to be contacted and how -- such as by e-mail or cell phone.

Divine the marketing plan. Ask, "show me the marketing plan for my house," Merrion says. "What do you have that's different or better than the next agent I'm going to call?"

Let the agent know if you expect an ad in the newspaper every Sunday. Will the agent prepare a brochure? If so, who do the brochures go to?

"Get specifics," Razzi says. "Show me an example of the kind of brochure you're going to do, the kind of Web page you're going to do, the virtual tour -- all of that."

Ask where the listing will go online. "The answer you want to hear is, 'Everywhere I can put it,' " Razzi says.

Don't let the listing appear on only the broker's Web site and the local Multiple Listing Service site. Make sure other brokers will be allowed to add the listing to their Web sites.

Determine the right asking price. Don't base your choice of an agent on who tells you the house is worth the most, O'Connor says. "The worst thing you can do is to price your home too high."

ADD P-I Personal Finance headlines to