Choosing a Real Estate Agent
Small house with a porch and a front walk
Choosing a real estate agent is a hiring decision. You are picking the person who will price the house, write the contract, and answer the phone when the appraisal comes in short.
Ask who the broker is, who watches the deadlines, and who picks up. At this office you can call (904) 309-0609 and a person answers.
Table of Contents
Start with the broker
In Florida the broker is responsible for the file. The person who handed you a card at an open house may not be the person who can sign off on the work.
Matt is a Florida broker. Military Realty Florida is the desk. You are not being passed to a call center in another state after the inspection. The Jacksonville realtor page is the longer introduction.
Navy veteran, and local to the gates
Matt is a Navy veteran. The work is local to NAS Jacksonville and Naval Station Mayport. NAS Jacksonville sits on the west bank of the St. Johns, about ZIP 32212. Mayport is at the mouth of the river. Blount Island Command is on the east side, north of the Dames Point bridge area.
A buyer on orders does not need a slogan. They need someone who will not put them in Mandarin and call the Mayport drive short. Orange Park is the straight shot for a lot of NAS Jacksonville families. Arlington and the beaches are the Mayport side. We say which is which on the first call.
A contractor's eye, not a speech
Matt is a Florida registered building contractor. That license does not replace your home inspection. It changes the walk. Roof, panel, crawl space, and the repair a buyer will actually demand get talked about on the sidewalk.
Older houses in Riverside, Avondale, San Marco, and Arlington are where that matters. River lots and the beaches can be a flood conversation. If the equity will not carry the work, we say so before you spend the money. We do not invent a rebate to make a bad roof look cheap.
A transaction coordinator is on the file
A sale is a stack of dates. Inspection, appraisal, loan commitment, HOA or CDD estoppel, title, and the closing itself. A transaction coordinator watches that stack so it does not live in one person's head.
You still get the broker. The coordinator is how the file keeps moving when someone is in a crawl space or on the base. Ask any agent you interview who that person is, and what happens when they are out.
A person answers the phone
Call (904) 309-0609. A person answers. That is the standard. If you are on PCS, say the report date in the first minute. If you are selling and buying, say both.
We would rather hear the constraint on Monday than discover it in the inspection period. Email is fine for documents. The decision to list, or to write, should be a real conversation.
Questions to ask any agent
Ask who answers when they are in a showing. Ask which contract they write, and who pays for what. On FAR and Florida Bar contracts in Northeast Florida, custom puts deed stamps, the owner's title policy, the listing commission, the estoppel, and the payoff on the seller. The buyer pays the new-loan stamps, the intangible tax, the lender's title policy, the appraisal, and the inspections. Amelia Island is the exception people ask about. Buyer-side title custom there. The title company is a checkbox. The contract controls.
Ask what they will not promise. A guaranteed sale price, a rebate percent, or a down-payment program that is already closed is a promise, not a plan. Homes for Heroes is a national program. Do not take an enrollment claim on faith. Ask, including here, if that file can be run through it. We will not quote a rebate percent. More of the buyer path is on buying a home. The seller path is on selling a home.
One more test
Have them explain your house, or your search, without a script. A Riverside house is not an eTown house. A Mayport commute is not a NAS Jacksonville commute. If they rank a county as the best and skip the drive, keep looking.
You can hire the same broker to sell and to buy. Say so up front. We will not run a listing appointment as if it were a buyer search, or the other way around. Call (904) 309-0609 when you want that conversation with Matt.
Keep going
Call (904) 309-0609.
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