OpenAgent can help find the right agent

For a lot of people, making sense of the housing market can be difficult and stressful - there’s a lot to understand, and given many of us only dip our toes into the market once or twice in our lives, it’s hard to find the time or reason to learn more until it’s time to buy or sell. It is at this point that you need an expert in your corner, someone who lives and breathes real estate day in and day out, and can help you safely navigate the market, minimise risk, and make the most out of your experience.

Why finding the right agent is paramount to a successful sale

Finding the right real estate agent can be the key to a successful sale: by getting to know you and understanding what you want, they will be able to handle every aspect of the selling process, both freeing up your time by handling various issues on your behalf and also helping you make informed decisions on your own, so that you can achieve your goals. In short, the right agent can eliminate much of the stress and anxiety that comes with buying or selling a house and get you out to the other side with a big win.

There are a number of ways to go about finding a real estate agent - agencies are, after all, dotted around every suburban shopping hub. Finding the right one for you, however, is a different story altogether.

How can OpenAgent help you find the right real estate agent to sell your property?

That’s where OpenAgent comes in. Established in 2013 by Zoe Pointon and Marta Higuera, the service was launched with the simple aim of helping people find the right real estate agent after the mixed experiences the cofounders and their friends and family had had with various agents.

Three years later, OpenAgent is a leading authority on real estate agents around Australia, easily helping users find the right agent for them through a database of almost 30,000 agents, 14,000 customer reviews, and its own data. Through this comprehensive use of data, OpenAgent has catalogued Australia’s largest collection of real estate agents, easily displaying to users their strengths and weaknesses in order to help the user make an informed decision on which agent is best aligned with their needs.

How does OpenAgent work?

OpenAgent works by having the user simply enter their postcode, which immediately results in hundreds of relevant agent listings. These listings are ranked according to the most successful agents working across your suburb and wider area, highlighting the number of houses and apartments they have sold or managed, their sales history, and how many properties they have sold in your suburb specifically.

Clicking through to an agent’s profile then shows the user the agent’s highest sale to date, how much the properties they have sold over the last 12 months have sold for, and in which areas they have had the highest concentration of successful sales, giving the user an insight into how suited the agent will be to their area.

Most importantly, these profiles showcase reviews from previous customers. By giving users a view of a previous customer’s personal experience, these reviews help give a valuable indication of what an agent is like to work with, and whether or not they will be suited to the user. Each agent’s profile also has a skill ratings list, aggregating the number of clients who have endorsed the agent for a particular skill, such as customer service, offering a competitive commission, giving accurate appraisals, and their local expertise.

While making the final decision on which agent to work with might still be a difficult one, the amount of information provided by OpenAgent simplifies the process and eliminates a number of the risks that come with simply choosing the first agent whose walk into off the street. The number of agents on the catalogued on the platform and the customer reviews is growing steadily day by day, making OpenAgent the perfect resource for anyone looking to take on the property market.

For more information on what questions you should ask an agent, or how to find a local agent, visit our blog.