How do you evaluate an agent's fee and service scope in New York?

Would it help to ask each agent for recent seller references involving a reasonably similar property? The useful questions would be who actually handled the file, what happened when a deadline moved, and whether any expected service turned out to cost extra.
 
Yes, but use references as one input rather than proof. More importantly, calculate three scenarios for each proposal: a smooth sale, a delayed transaction and a failed first deal. List both extra spending and tasks that would fall back on you.
 
At roughly $215,000, separately charged fixed items may have a noticeable effect on the comparison. That doesn’t make the cheaper or dearer proposal wrong; it just makes vague exclusions harder to ignore. Put a dollar amount against each exclusion where possible.
 
One more question for the lower-fee proposals: if the property does not close, who owes any photography or other third-party expense already incurred? The proposal should distinguish the agent’s fee from vendor costs and explain when each becomes payable.
 
Thanks all. I’ve built the side-by-side table and sent the same scenario questions to each agent. The biggest gap was indeed after an offer is accepted; the proposals used broad language there. I’m now asking for named contacts, separate vendor costs, conflict handling and what support continues after a failed deal.
 
That sounds more useful than comparing package names. When the answers return, look for exclusions that have simply been replaced with vague wording. “Assistance available,” for example, is not the same as responsibility for a task.
 
I’d also ask them to correct the scope table themselves if they think any line misstates their proposal. That gives each agent a fair chance to clarify, and the revised version can sit beside whatever agreement you are eventually asked to sign.
 
Don’t let strong buyer qualification be sold as protection against every fall-through. Circumstances can change after an offer. The more revealing question is how the agent monitors progress, communicates warning signs and preserves alternatives without promising an outcome.
 
A simple weighted scorecard may keep this manageable. Give the greatest weight to the items that would be hardest for you to cover personally—perhaps negotiation, offer comparison and deadline coordination—then score price transparency, relevant sales and communication separately.
 
For the comparable-sales answer, insist on enough context to judge relevance: property type, general location, condition, timing and whether the transaction actually resembles the likely buyer pool for this building. A headline sale price alone tells you very little.
 
Once the written answers arrive, choose based on the remaining risk as well as the fee. If one proposal costs more but clearly assigns the difficult tasks, that difference is measurable. If it merely uses broader language, there is no reason to pay a premium for it.
 
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