Nov 12, 2025
When you hire a real estate agent, what are you actually paying for?
Many sellers interview agents and make their decision based on who simply sold the most homes or who will "throw in" the most perks, like discounted commissions, free staging, or paying for home improvements.
But this is like choosing a surgeon based on who will pay for your gas on the way to the hospital. It's focusing on the wrong thing, and it's a mistake that can cost you tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It's time to set the record straight. A real estate agent is a high-stakes service professional, not a vendor coordinator.
Service Business vs. Catering
Yes, a real estate agent is in the service business. But so are financial advisors, attorneys, and doctors. Ultimately in the service business, you pay for their knowledge, experience, expertise, and outcomes. Not based on their hospitality.
We've started to confuse "professional service" with "customer service" or even "catering."
Professional Service (The Outcome): This is the core of the job. It’s the data-driven pricing strategy, the expert marketing, the high stakes negotiation, and the market specific expertise that delivers a superior financial result.
Customer Service (The Experience): This is being polite, responsive, and supportive. It's important, but it's not the main job.
Catering (The "Perks"): This is paying for a seller's staging, paint, walking their dog, or picking up their dry cleaning.
Clients often forget that an agent's "perks" are not the measure of their skill.
Would You Hire Your Doctor This Way?
Think about how you'd hire another service professional.
Do you choose your financial advisor based on who has the highest number of clients, or the one who has the best returns?
Do you choose your attorney based on who offers the cheapest hourly rate, or the one who wins?
Do you choose your doctor based on how much money they make?
Of course not. You choose them based on their outcomes. You want the advisor with the best return record, the doctor with the highest success rate, and the attorney who wins their cases. You hire for the result because the stakes are too high to do otherwise.
Why would you treat the sale of your single largest asset any differently?
If an attorney or financial advisor was free, you'd rightly wonder about their performance. An agent who quickly discounts their own commission is showing you exactly how they'll negotiate for your home.
The Result is the Only Thing That Matters
A service professional is judged by the outcome they deliver. The agent's service is selling your home. The crucial question is, how well did they sell it?
This doesn't mean an agent can't also provide great customer service. They can, and they absolutely should. But clients must remember the difference: customer service alone is not a substitute for results.
The overarching decision in picking any service professional should be for the result they’ll provide.
What Are "Real Results"?
Real results are not vanity metrics, like "most homes sold."
Real results are about performance, home by home. They should have many homes sold, but having sold the most homes is not a performance metric that applies to a home seller.
It’s knowledge from experience.
It’s expertise proven to be right, again and again.
It’s a track record of sales that outperform the market, regardless of the client's situation.
So many clients choose an agent based on commission rates or what the agent will pay for. The one thing they almost always forget to scrutinize is the agent's actual, provable individual sale results against the competition.
Ask the Right Questions
In the services business, we all want the best. The next time you interview an agent, don't be distracted by the perks.
Don't ask, "What will you pay for?"
First, ask them to prove their value. Ask them:
"Show me, home by home, what the results were for your sellers compared to the real-time competition in their neighborhoods. How much of a premium did you earn for them?"
Choose the professional who will make you the most money, not just based on who will spend the most on you. That is the true value of a great agent.
