Is It A Good Idea to Hire Someone Close to You as Your Real Estate Agent?

As you grow up, you tend to discover bits of wisdom. One good piece of advice is to trust your friends and family when you want to hire professionals to work for you, such as a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer, or a plumber.

Another good tip is to use a real estate agent when you’re looking through real estate listings in Calgary to buy a new house or condo unit. A real estate agent can help you find the right houses that fit you needs and budget, negotiate for you to settle the price, and to handle all the paperwork and details.

So with these two facts hand in hand, it does seem to make sense to hire a friend or family member if they’re also professional real estate agents, right? They already have a license, and they know you as well. It seems like a slam dunk.

But the sad truth is that this doesn’t always work well. While you can recommend their services to people you know who are looking for their own homes, it’s really not a good idea if your real estate agent is someone close to you.

What’s wrong with the Idea?

You need to make sure that your real estate agent has all the essential characteristics and attributes needed before you pick them. Just because they’re personally close to you doesn’t mean that they also have all these characteristics.

They should have ample experience and a deep understanding of the area where you want to buy your home. When you read reviews from previous clients, these should be filled with fulsome praise. They should also be very objective in assessing your own situation. Sometimes a close friend may not have these attributes, especially the objectivity.

You need to be objective as well, and it doesn’t help that house-hunting can be a very stressful activity. It affects your life and your budget in a huge way. The stress can bring out the worst in you or your loved one, and so your personal relationship may be endangered.

In fact, sometimes you may have to end up firing your real estate agent if you can’t work together well. Firing a loved one can end your relationship.

How to Say No

So how do you go about telling your buddy or your sibling that you can’t have them as your real estate agent? Tell them right away that you’re very picky and unpredictable, and it’s possible that you may end up firing your real estate agent. So you can’t hire them because you value your relationship and you don’t want to take that risk.

Of course, they can still help by at least recommending a good real estate agent. You may even arrange for your buddy to get a referral fee from the agent they recommend.

If You Still Say Yes

What if your buddy does have extensive experience with the area and you two really work well together with your personalities? If you absolutely know you can work together well because you’ve done so in the past, then this is actually a good partnership.

Just make sure at the start that there will be no hard feelings if you two disagree. It’s always a risk to mix business with personal relationships, so you need to be careful!