Should I Hire a Real Estate Agent or Work With a Team?

Take the velocity of the Toronto real estate market, as it continues to move at breakneck speeds. Now, combine this with tech-savvy consumers increasingly demanding more (and rightly so) from their real estate team or individual agent. This is leading to an evolution of how business is happening here in Toronto and other major global markets. There are so many moving parts to a successful real estate transaction – to name a few:

 

The trending story is that real estate teams will continue to dominate the market. They’re becoming more influential in many ways, more so than the outdated stereotypical traditional model of what a real estate brokerage used to be.

In fact, if I were to give one piece of advice to an agent looking to get experience in the business: join a good real estate team. Don’t focus on the brokerage itself. While a brokerage can provide training, they can’t provide real on the job experience the way a competent team can.

Similarly, if you’re considering buying, selling, investing, or leasing in downtown Toronto, I highly recommend working with a real estate team. Think about it this way, a lease, for example, can be more complex than a $5M transaction with sometimes even higher stakes…hard to believe, but true!

Can an individual agent provide a great customer experience? Absolutely. However, ask yourself, as a buyer, don’t you want an agent who specializes in what you’re looking for – whether that be a condo or house? This is someone who’s physically been part of past sales and has relationships with active agents in your preferred area. If you’re selling a property, wouldn’t you want a real estate team that can provide in-house staging and best-in-class marketing at no additional fee? And if you’re renting out your investment property and worried about getting a bad tenant, wouldn’t you want someone who’s done over 150 leases in their career? If you’re making your first investment in the Toronto real estate market, wouldn’t you want an agent that has their own portfolio and track record of working with investors? 

Most importantly, you’ll want to know that if your realtor was unexpectedly unavailable, there is someone who will jump in.

 

When hiring an individual realtor versus a team, these are some of the questions that will come to mind. Given how expensive Toronto real estate has become and how much of your net worth you have tied up into any one property or transaction, the margins for error are slim. The same goes for your need for peace of mind in having a seamless experience. A professional team will have a dedicated customer service representative. That means quicker responses or someone to get ahead of issues in tandem or when your lead agent is unavailable.

When Kori and I got into real estate over a decade ago, our intent was never to have or run a team. But from day one, our fundamental guiding purpose was to give the best possible experience to our clients. It was this underlying principle that led to the evolution of building out a real estate team. One that could give the best possible one-stop solution to our growing and sophisticated client base. Our current warehouse with $400,000 of staging inventory started out with the purchase of one pillow, 7 years ago! True story.

 

If you’d like to learn more about Fox Marin, and how our team can assist your real estate aspirations, put us to the test and contact us (we’re nice).