Is Your Real Estate Agent Honest

So you’ve decided to buy or sell your home. You think you selected a real estate agent with whom you are comfortable working. How do you know that the agent is honest and will put your best interests ahead of his or her own? It seems most people think you don’t get to know until, or unless, the agent does something unethical to you. Wrong. All the way wrong. There are, in fact, several things you can do to ensure that you are going to be working with an honest and ethical agent. One of the first things to do is ask the agents you are considering to tell you if they are a member of the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Most, but not all, will say, truthfully, that they are. The reason this is important is that by becoming a member of NAR, agents affirm their commitment to the Association’s National Code of Ethics. If the agent you will be working with is not a member of NAR, you need to find out why. Another thing to do is ask the agent for a list of past clients. Most agents can’t wait to tell you with whom they have worked. I know I can’t. Honest agents want prospective clients to know how satisfied their past clients have been with their work. An agent who hems and haws about providing you with such a list is raising a very real red flag. You should also access those service rating sites such as Yelp and Angie’s List, among others. Keep in mind, though, there are those who, on occasion, use these sites to batter down competitors, seek revenge for losing out on a listing or sale, or who have some other motivation to savage the reputation of another agent. But I have found most of the time such sites do provide some sense of the agent’s way of doing business. Log onto California’s Department of Real Estate, www.dre.ca.gov and see if the agent has any disciplinary history. Go the website, click on consumers, then click on verify a license. You will be able to determine the agent’s license status and any disciplinary actions associated with that agent. (Just so you know, in a couple of months the Department of Real Estate will be realigned and will be known as the Bureau of Real Estate under the state’s Consumer Affairs.) It certainly doesn’t hurt to get to know what the real estate industry expects of its agents. Feel free to go to the website of the National Association of Realtors, www.realtor.org. Once you access the site go to Law, Ethics, and Policy, and click on NAR Code of Ethics. Read through it and see the standards to which realtors© subscribe. Your Chatsworth and Northridge based agents belong to the Southland Regional Association of Realtors. Go to that website, www.srar.com, click on MLS, then click on MLS Rules. Try to stay awake as you learn the rules your local real estate association imposes on its members. Violating the Code of Ethics and/or the MLS rules will result in the concerned agent being disciplined. As I said in my last blog, most agents sincerely want to do the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons. But just to make sure, as we say in the business, do your own inspection.