suggest interviewing a few, unless you have one you're already confident in. Obviously realtors vary in terms of skills and commitment and other factors. We have numerous realtors we go to church with and as such decided NOT to use one from the ward since we didnt want to offend somebody in the ward by not picking them.

We received referrals from a friend who bragged about how fast their agent had just sold their home, so we met the agent, liked her and her husband (realtor team) and then hired them to represent us on our new home purchase. My wife and I found the home online, called the realtor up and said we wanted to see the home, met the agent there, loved the home, and said we wanted to make an offer. Agent said great, literally had not shown us a single home up to that point. She called a few hours later, said it was a super desirable home and suggested we offer a lot more than asking price. (at least 20K more than asking price) I said no, we offered full asking price, and it was immediately accepted. So I was glad we didnt listen to the realtor. We thought she was getting a pretty good deal since she hadnt shown us a single home and the home we purchased we had found online and called her about. Anyway, probably a pretty easy deal since we found it, offered full price and it was accepted immediately.

She then asked about selling our house, and I told her we were considering doing FSBO, and I had a number that I wanted out of it but she pushed and we let her put together a "market valuation" which came in much less (like $20,000) than what I wanted to list the house for. So I politely told her no thanks, we're going to try FSBO for a while. Day 1 of FSBO we got a full price offer, had 3 offers within 3 days. Took the full price offer, appraisal came back about 5K less than the agreed upon price, so we worked that out and ended up with full price. Then the realtor saw it was sold and called me and told me that she was disappointed we had done it on our own and wished we would have allowed her to help us. I was like ??????

So.......we would have overpaid by 20K+ and undersold by 20K+ if we'd listened to the realtor. Anyway, this isnt to say realtors are crooks. There are bad dentists, bad realtors, bad attorneys, and I think it pays to be involved, or in the case of FSBO it seems like a valid option in a lot of places. But definitely interview a few. I really wonder if my friends who sold their house so fast with the realtor they recommended to us did so because it was underpriced by the realtor for a quick sale???