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# How To Choose a Real Estate Agent: Questions To Ask Before You List Or Buy
- URL: https://www.mortgagemomradio.com/how-to-choose-a-real-estate-agent-questions-to-ask-before-you-list-or-buy/
- Published: 2023-03-08T21:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-04T20:56:36.000Z
- Description: Buyers are writing offers and hearing nothing back. Debbie and a RE/MAX agent break down why listing agents stopped answering, the questions that separate a working agent from a checked-out one, and why the button on a listing portal almost never reaches the agent who has the house.
- Author: Deborah Marcoux
- Tags: Podcast, Mortgage Mom Radio, #episode-backfill

Mortgage Mom Radio • “How To Select The Right Real Estate Agent” • Live show from Wednesday, March 8, 2023 • 55 minutes • Hosted by Debbie Marcoux, NMLS #237926

Debbie brings on Veronica, a RE/MAX agent based in Santa Clarita who works across Los Angeles County and beyond, to talk about something both of them were hearing from clients that week: buyers writing offers and never getting a response. Listing agents who don’t publish a phone number, don’t return calls, and in one case told another agent flatly that she was taking twenty calls on that listing and no more. The show turns into a practical guide — what to ask an agent before you hire one, on either side of the deal, and what it costs a seller when their own agent stops picking up.

**Editor's note, added later:** this show aired in March 2023, before the National Association of Realtors settlement changed how buyer-agent commissions are offered and paid. Debbie's advice on how to choose an agent still holds, but the commission mechanics she describes here no longer reflect how a purchase works today. For the current rules, see [Will the NAR Settlement Lower Home Prices?](https://www.mortgagemomradio.com/will-the-nar-settlement-lower-home-prices-what-buyers-and-sellers-need-to-know/)

## Key takeaways

- **The “contact agent” button on a listing portal usually isn’t the listing agent.** Those are paid leads — agents spend thousands a month to receive them. Some are excellent; the point is you’re not reaching the person who actually has the house.
- **Pick one agent and stay with them.** You don’t learn what a buyer really wants from a phone call — you learn it walking through the fourth and fifth house. Both women describe buying something completely different from what they originally described.
- **Sellers: your agent not answering the phone is costing you offers.** Buyers’ agents report calling, texting, emailing, messaging on Facebook and going through the office with no reply — and sellers usually have no idea it’s happening.
- **Interview questions that actually separate agents:** Is real estate your full-time job? What time do you stop answering your phone? How often do you check email? If an offer arrives at 7 p.m., do I hear about it that night or tomorrow?
- **The best offer isn’t always the highest.** A seller may need a rent-back, a longer escrow, a fast close, or want to keep the washer and dryer. A buyer’s agent who calls the listing agent *before* writing finds that out and writes to it.
- **Manufactured is financeable; mobile generally isn’t.** Debbie’s team finances manufactured homes — permanently affixed to a foundation, HUD tags intact, minimum double-wide, subject to age limits. A home in a park on leased land is mobile-home financing, which they don’t do.
- **Buyer letters to sellers are over.** The personal “why we love your home” letter isn’t permitted any more because of fair-housing and discrimination concerns.

## Chapters

- 03:00Today’s guest: a RE/MAX agent from Santa Clarita
- 04:00What changed: offers written, calls never returned
- 11:00The client email that prompted this show
- 13:00Buyers: the “contact agent” button is a lead, not the listing agent
- 16:00Low inventory means your agent has to actually work
- 17:00Referrals and reviews: how to find someone good
- 18:00Why one agent across many showings beats a new agent per house
- 20:00Sellers: is your listing agent answering the phone?
- 22:00“You’re the nineteenth call” — money left on the table
- 23:00Questions to ask before you sign a listing agreement
- 28:00Q&A: financing a mobile home vs. a manufactured home
- 31:00Q&A: how to make an offer stand out when it isn’t the highest
- 34:00Q&A: can buyers still write letters to sellers?
- 37:00Who pays the buyer’s agent
- 44:00Q&A: respecting your agent’s time, and buyer-broker agreements
- 49:00Recap: what to settle before you hand over your listing

## Questions answered on this show

### “I’m looking at mobile homes — can I get a mortgage on one?”

There is a real difference between a *mobile* home and a *manufactured* home, and it decides whether normal mortgage financing is even on the table. If the home sits in a park on leased land, that is almost always mobile-home financing, which Debbie’s team does not do. A manufactured home can qualify for standard financing, but it has to be permanently affixed to the foundation, it has to have its HUD tags, it can’t be older than the program allows, and it has to be at least a double-wide. There are more boxes to tick beyond those. Her advice was to get on the phone with someone on the team and walk through it property by property before you go shopping, so you know what you’re allowed to fall in love with.

### “What makes an offer more likely to get accepted?”

Not price alone. Veronica’s answer: it comes down to your agent doing the due diligence and calling the listing agent before writing anything. Sellers have needs that never appear in the listing — they need a rent-back because they’re moving out of state and the timing has to line up, or they need a fast escrow, or they’d rather sell to a family than an investor, or they want to take the washer and dryer with them and an offer demanding it turns them off. Any one of those can matter more than another few thousand dollars. She calls on every single house before she writes, and that is the specific work you should expect from an agent representing you.

### “Do buyers still write letters to sellers explaining why they want the home?”

No — that practice isn’t allowed any more, because of discrimination and fair-housing concerns. Veronica’s honest view is that it cuts both ways: the letters did sometimes move sellers to accept an offer that wasn’t the strongest one in front of them, which is precisely the problem. Either way, it’s a tool that no longer exists, so don’t build your strategy around it.

### “What should buyers understand about respecting their agent’s time?”

A listener who used to be an agent herself raised it, and both women agreed it runs both ways. On volume: if a client works six days a week and wants to see ten houses on their one day off, Veronica is all for it — that’s the job. On budget, she pushes back, because touring homes $100,000 over what you can afford means measuring every realistic house against one you can’t have. The part buyers rarely see is the investment on the other side: the gas, the wear on the car, the hours setting up appointments and chasing listing agents, the family events missed — all of it unpaid unless the transaction closes. Veronica personally doesn’t ask clients to sign a buyer-broker agreement; she’d rather work hard enough that you choose to stay. Debbie’s point in return: those agreements are a legitimate business decision, and buyers should read carefully how the agent’s fee is stated in them, because it can leave you covering a shortfall at closing.

### Get your financing lined up before you start touring homes

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Full transcript (lightly edited for clarity) 

*Auto-generated captions cleaned for readability. Commercial breaks, sponsor messages, and repeated housekeeping have been trimmed; licensing information appears at the bottom of this page. The guest’s surname could not be verified from the audio and her direct phone number has been left off this page — contact the Mortgage Mom Radio office and we’ll connect you.*

### Today’s guest

**Debbie:** Welcome to Mortgage Mom Radio. I’m Debbie Marcoux, the Mortgage Mom. In ten years I’ve gotten her in here twice — my guest today is Veronica with RE/MAX. She’s a local real estate agent here in Santa Clarita, but lately you’re going all over the place.

**Veronica:** I have been. I just put one in escrow out in Upland. Especially if it’s a referral and someone I know, I’ll go the distance to make sure they’re taken care of.

**Debbie:** Veronica is by far one of the best real estate agents I’ve worked with in my career — I’ve referred many people to her. I wanted her on today because the industry has shifted. We went from a normal market to an absolutely insane market and now to a slower one, and we keep running into the same problem: our clients are trying to see homes, they’re writing offers, and we can’t get the listing agent to even acknowledge that an offer exists.

**Veronica:** It’s shocking. They don’t call back. Half the time they don’t even put a phone number in the MLS or anywhere you can find one. I feel like I’m stalking people just to get hold of an agent to help my clients.

### The email that prompted this show

**Debbie:** Let me read you something. Heather on my team sent one of her clients a normal check-in: happy Wednesday, any questions, I’m here to help. The client wrote back that they’re just sad, because they haven’t heard anything at all on their offer — and that their own agent told them the seller’s agent isn’t responding to her any more. They were already thinking they’d have to go out and start looking again. And Heather wrote back, my God, Debbie and I were talking about this exact thing today, because another agent had just told her the same story.

So I’m hearing it from Heather, I’m hearing it from Veronica, I’m hearing it from agents all over. It’s an ongoing battle, especially for buyers’ agents — the people out there actually finding the home, tracking down the listing agent, asking the questions, writing the offer — and getting no response. Which is exactly why it matters so much who you pick when you decide to sell or to buy.

### Buyers: how not to find an agent

**Debbie:** A lot of people decide they want to buy and don’t know how to find an agent. So they’re on Redfin, Zillow, realtor.com, they see a house they like, and they contact whoever they think is the agent. Is that actually the listing agent?

**Veronica:** Not usually. A lot of those websites sell what they call leads. You say you’re interested in the house on Elm Street, and it gets sent to an agent who is paying thousands of dollars every month for your information so they can call you and try to earn your business. Sometimes they’re great agents. But it’s usually not the listing agent.

**Debbie:** Right, and in my experience — I can’t say it’s true 100% of the time — a lot of those agents are newer and less experienced. This is a harder market than people think. Inventory is extremely low. Homes are sitting a little longer than they were, but there still isn’t much to buy. So when something comes on priced right, in a range with a lot of competition — say five to seven hundred thousand, where there are far more buyers than there are for a high-million-dollar home — you need the right agent to get your offer accepted. Clicking the button attached to the listing is not that.

**Veronica:** Referrals are the best way — friends and family who’ve actually used someone and trust them. If you don’t have that, look people up, read the reviews, look at what they’ve done. That speaks volumes. And you want someone in your corner. If you’re always contacting whoever happens to be attached to the house, you never have that one person fighting for you.

### Why staying with one agent matters

**Debbie:** The relationship is everything, because you only understand what a buyer needs by walking through multiple properties with them. On the phone they’ll say three bedrooms, two baths, RV parking. You don’t really know them until you’re in the fourth house and they’re saying, I like this but not that, this is too close to the school, I don’t want to back up to that. If it’s a different agent every time, nobody ever hits it on the head.

**Veronica:** It’s a learning experience for everybody. A lot of clients think they know what they want, and after a few houses and a few conversations they realize they wanted something totally different.

**Debbie:** I bought something completely different from what I set out to buy. I wanted land, room to park the toys, no HOA. Then you start making the drive out to the further areas and you go — I can’t do this every day. I ended up in an HOA in the middle of town, down the street from the grocery store, because what actually mattered to me was that I don’t have time to shop and I need Instacart. You’re not getting Instacart out in the middle of nowhere.

**Veronica:** My version of that was walking into houses out there and finding thick dust on everything, and having to tell someone: this is what living out here is. You get used to this. And it wasn’t happening.

### Sellers: is your agent picking up the phone?

**Debbie:** Give me some of what you’ve been running into lately.

**Veronica:** Not answering calls. Not calling back. It’s gotten to the point where I’ll Facebook message, text, leave a voicemail, call the office, talk to the assistant — several attempts, nothing. And it’s sad, because those agents are leaving money on the table for their sellers. They’re losing potential buyers. I called one agent recently, someone I’ve known for years, just to touch base because I had an interested client, and the first words out of her mouth were: I’m taking twenty of these calls and that’s it, you’re number nineteen. It blew my mind.

**Debbie:** So you’re a seller, your house is listed, and agents are calling because they have buyers who might work — and the response is, you’re the nineteenth call.

**Veronica:** I highly doubt those sellers know. They don’t know their agent isn’t answering, isn’t taking calls, isn’t answering buyers’ agents’ questions. And they’re losing money because of it. I work both sides — listings and buyers — so I see both ends, and I know what the buyer’s agent is going through. If you’re a listing agent ignoring those calls, you could have had another offer for your seller.

**Debbie:** As a seller you have no idea what your agent is doing after you sign. You’re hoping they’re doing their due diligence. You don’t know that they’re not returning questions or setting up appointments to show your home.

**Veronica:** There are so many times I’d love to go knock on the seller’s door and say, I’ve tried to show your house ten times and they won’t answer me.

### What to ask before you hire a listing agent

**Debbie:** So what does a seller ask in the interview to avoid ending up with that agent?

**Veronica:** Sit down and make sure they’re going to work for you and that they want to take care of you. Ask how they work. Some agents will tell you straight off: I work nine to five, then my phone goes off, it’s family time or gym time. Some are blunt about it. Ask whether this is a full-time job, because some agents have a regular job and do real estate on the side, evenings and weekends, so the hours simply aren’t there. Ask when they stop answering the phone and how often they check email. Tell them you want updates on activity.

**Veronica:** I work with a lot of police and fire, and their hours are crazy, so I tell people I’ll work around your schedule. If you’re free at 9:45 at night and I’m awake, text me and I’ll call you right back. Not everybody is nine to five. My phone never stops; my kids make fun of me for it.

**Debbie:** I stop answering texts and emails when I fall asleep with the phone in my hand.

**Debbie:** And think about why that matters. If you’re the buyer’s agent, you work around your clients’ schedules, and most people work days and look at houses in the evenings and on weekends. So an offer gets written at seven or eight at night, and you need the listing agent, because the seller may have something that helps them — a rent-back they need for timing, a fast escrow, or they want to keep the washer and dryer, so don’t write it into the offer and turn them off. Little things that get the deal put together. That agent needs to take the call while you’re sitting with the client writing — not two days later, when the buyer has moved on to another house.

### Q&A: mobile vs. manufactured homes

**Debbie:** Blanca writes that she’s a former agent starting over after some major life changes, she’s looking into mobile homes, and she wants to understand the loan options and how to write an offer that’s more appealing.

Blanca, get back on the phone with Heather, because we do manufactured home financing — we do not do mobile home financing, and there is a real difference. If you’re in a mobile home park on leased land, the majority of the time that is mobile home financing, and we don’t do it. If it’s a manufactured home, it has to be permanently fixed to the foundation, it can’t be too old, it has to be at least a double-wide, it needs its HUD tags — there’s a list of things it has to satisfy to qualify for normal mortgage financing. Heather can take you through it start to finish so you know exactly what to look for. Take the consultation. That’s what we’re here for.

**Veronica:** And on getting your offer accepted — it’s about your agent doing their due diligence, calling the listing agent, finding out whatever they can. It’s not always about who has the highest offer. Sometimes they need a longer escrow, or a rent-back, or they really want a family living there rather than an investor. Lean on your agent to find out what the seller actually needs.

### Q&A: letters to sellers

**Debbie:** Blanca asks whether buyers still write letters to sellers about their personal situation and why they want the home.

**Veronica:** You’re not allowed to do that any more. They consider it discrimination and unfair. It’s unfortunate in one sense — people let their emotions get the best of them when they read those letters and sometimes chose an offer that wasn’t the best one. But it isn’t permitted now.

### Who pays the buyer’s agent

**Debbie:** One thing a lot of buyers don’t know is that they aren’t the ones paying you.

**Veronica:** Not everyone understands it. Buyers don’t pay me a dime — the seller pays the fees. So find someone who is going to work for you, not the seller’s agent. The listing agent can work with you, but they represent the seller. Why wouldn’t you have somebody there only for you?

**Debbie:** And don’t tour one house with one listing agent and the next with another. Pick someone who works with you start to finish.

### Q&A: respecting your agent’s time, and buyer-broker agreements

**Debbie:** Blanca adds that people need to hear about respecting their agent’s advice — not demanding excessive showings in one day or homes out of their budget — and about signing a buyer-broker agreement rather than wasting an agent’s time and then using someone else.

**Veronica:** There should be mutual respect on both ends. On showings, if that’s what works for my client, I’m all for it — some of them work six days a week and have one day to see ten properties. On budget, I’ll have the conversation, because if you go see something $100,000 over budget you’re going to love it and compare every other house to it. We find a balance.

**Debbie:** And there’s real upfront expense on your side — gas, wear and tear on the car, your time, the hours behind the computer reaching out to agents and setting up appointments, driving all the way out to Upland. If the transaction doesn’t close with you, you never get paid. Not a dime. It’s like being asked to come work the weekend because we’re behind, but we’re not going to pay you.

**Veronica:** I miss my kids’ sports games and a lot of family events, and I spend money up front. But I don’t have people sign the agreement — I’d rather work hard enough that you see the value and want to work with me, instead of feeling stuck with me. I know agents who use them and love them, and if it works for them, so be it.

**Debbie:** They’re not a bad thing — plenty of good agents use them, and it’s a personal call about your business model. What I’d tell buyers is to read how the fee is written. In the 90s a listing was typically six percent, three to each side. As prices climbed, sellers negotiated, and five percent — two and a half each side — became the norm. Lately I’m seeing listings come in at four percent, two and two, or four and a half where the listing agent keeps more and offers less to the buyer’s agent. Three times in the last month I’ve had buyers paying the difference out of their own closing costs to make up the gap in their buyer-broker agreement. Know what you’re signing.

### Recap

**Debbie:** What we’re dealing with right now is simple: buyers need to get into your house, and buyers’ agents need to be able to reach your agent. If you’re selling, interview the person who is going to list your property. Find out what they keep versus what goes to the buyer’s agent. Understand what each side actually does — the listing agent puts it in the MLS, does some marketing, puts it on social media; the buyer’s agent is in the car driving people around, showing the property, writing the offer, helping them get their pre-approval done. I’ve done both sides, and I’ll say it plainly: the buyer’s agent is doing more work. So if you’re negotiating a lower commission with your listing agent, make sure you’re still offering the buyer’s agent enough to bring you a buyer, and that your listing agent is the one accepting the lower number.

**Veronica:** The key thing is finding someone who will work for you and answer their phone. Have their number on their website. Put a cell number in the MLS, not an office line that goes to voicemail. Check email. Take calls. Answer texts after five.

**Debbie:** That’s it for today. If you want to be part of the show live and ask your questions instead of hearing it two weeks later on the radio, text MOM to 844-935-3634 — 844-WE-LEND-4 — and you’ll get one link a week. And if you’d like to work with Veronica, get in touch with me any way you like and I’ll put you together. Back again next Wednesday.

Debbie Marcoux is licensed by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act, NMLS ID #237926, and additionally licensed in AZ (0941504), FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, NV, NC, OR, TN, TX, and WA. Rates and figures discussed were current as of the air date of March 8, 2023, reflect national conforming averages, and are not an offer of credit or a rate quote. Real estate commission practices and buyer-agency agreements described in this episode reflect the rules in place in early 2023 and have since changed; confirm current practice with a licensed agent. Debbie Marcoux is not a financial advisor; consult qualified professionals about your individual situation.