How to choose a realtor
Most people choose a realtor the way they choose a dentist. Somebody recommends one, the person seems pleasant, and that is the decision. It works often enough that nobody examines it. The reason to do better is that a weak agent costs you invisibly: you never see the house you did not hear about, the repair credit nobody asked for, or the offer that was structured to be easy rather than to win.
So, how to choose a realtor, in one line: verify the license with the state that issued it, interview three on evidence rather than rapport, ask what they charge and who pays it, read the agreement before you sign it, and check the first few things you are told against a record nobody in the transaction wrote. Every step catches something specific, and a checklist nobody believes in is one everybody skips.
Verify the license before anything else
Every state licenses the people who sell real estate in it, and every state regulator publishes a free public lookup. In Nevada that regulator is the Real Estate Division. Elsewhere it is a commission, a department or a bureau under some other name, and the way to find it is to search the state's name with "real estate license lookup" and take the result on a state government domain rather than one embedded in a brokerage's site.
A lookup commonly returns whether the license is active, what type it is, which brokerage holds it, and whether there is disciplinary history. That is a lot of fact for two minutes, and it is the only claim in the whole introduction you can check for free. If the name you were given does not appear at all, ask why before you ask anything else.
Realtor, agent, broker: the difference in one paragraph
A real estate agent is a licensed salesperson, and in almost every state that license has to be held by a broker. The broker carries the higher license, can run a firm, and is answerable for what the agents under them do. A Realtor is neither of those. It is a membership: Realtor is a trademark of the National Association of Realtors, and a member agrees to that association's Code of Ethics, which local associations enforce through their own complaint and arbitration process. So agent and broker say what somebody is licensed to do, and Realtor says which association they pay dues to. Membership is not a skill rating and its absence is not a warning, but that complaint route is real and it sits alongside the state regulator's rather than replacing it.
Agent and broker
A license
What somebody is licensed to do. The agent is a licensed salesperson, the broker holds the higher license, can run a firm, and answers for the agents under them. The state regulator is the complaint route.
Realtor
A membership
Which association they pay dues to. A trademark of the National Association of Realtors, a Code of Ethics, and a complaint and arbitration process that sits alongside the regulator's rather than replacing it.
How to choose a real estate agent: interview three, on evidence
Three, because one gives you nothing to compare and five is an afternoon nobody spends. Take them from different places: one referral from a person who closed something recently, one whose name keeps appearing on activity where you are shopping, and one from anywhere else. The third breaks the tie and does more work than you would think. Ask all three for the same four things, and ask for evidence rather than an impression. If two of you are buying, sit through the same three interviews and settle the budget before the first one, which is where house hunting together starts.
Closed transactions in the last twelve months, in your price band and your area.
The twelve-month window filters out a career that peaked years ago. The price band matters because an agent who works mostly at twice your budget is guessing at yours, and so is one who works mostly at half of it. You want recent work that resembles what you are about to do, not the largest number.
How they are paid, and by whom.
Since the National Association of Realtors settlement practice changes took effect in August 2024, a buyer working with an agent through the MLS signs a written representation agreement before touring a home, and that agreement has to state the agent's compensation as an amount or a formula rather than an open-ended one. It was always negotiable. What is new is that the number is written down before anyone sees a house, which makes the first meeting a negotiation whether it feels like one or not. Who actually hands over that money is settled later, in the offer.
How many clients they have right now, and how many are buyers.
There is no correct number, only whether that answer and their promised availability can both be true.
Who covers when they are away, and will you have met that person.
Contract deadlines do not pause for a holiday. It is a dull question and the one that saves a deal.
Questions to ask a realtor, and the answers worth having
Six of them, with the shape of a good answer beside each. The line being drawn is not between clever and slow. It is between a specific answer and a comfortable one.
| Ask | What a good answer sounds like |
|---|---|
| How many transactions have you closed in the last twelve months? | A number, with the areas and the price range, and an offer to show them. Not a career total and not a dollar volume. |
| How do you arrive at an offer or a list price? | Recent comparable sales, current days on market and the price-cut pattern in that specific area. Not a fixed percentage off asking. |
| What is your compensation, and who pays it? | A percentage or a flat fee, said without hesitation, plus what happens if the other side offers less than that. |
| Do you receive referral fees from lenders, title companies, inspectors or warranty providers? | A straight yes or no, and if yes, the written disclosure and a list of alternatives. Not a change of subject. |
| What would you tell me not to waive? | A specific answer with a reason attached. An agent who has never talked a client out of anything is not adding much. |
| Tell me about a deal of yours that fell apart. | A real one, told plainly, with their own part in it. Everyone has them. Only some people will describe one. |
The pricing question is the one that separates people. A useful answer is built out of comparable sales, days on market and the share of listings taking price cuts, and it comes out different for two neighborhoods four miles apart. If you get a percentage off asking, you have learned that the number was never about your house.
The red flags
Dual agency introduced as a formality
One licensee representing both sides of the same sale, so that the listing agent is also yours, is legal in many states and is a genuine conflict, which is why it is papered. Nevada shows how the paperwork reads: under NRS 645.252 a licensee acting for more than one party must obtain written consent from each of them, and that consent has to state that the parties have adverse interests, that confidential information stays confidential for a year after the agreement ends, and that a party is not required to consent at all. Ask at the interview how they handle it. If the first time you hear the phrase is at the offer, under a deadline, the flag is the timing rather than the practice.
Pressure to waive the inspection
Waiving is a real competitive tactic and sometimes a rational one. The flag is an agent who presents it as routine rather than as a risk you are choosing to take, because that is a decision being made for you. Know what you are giving up first: what a home inspection costs, what a home inspection is, and the contingency that is the mechanism being removed.
No written agreement, or one waved through as "just the state paperwork"
The forms are the part of this with teeth. In Nevada the statutory duties a licensee owes a client cannot be waived (NRS 645.255), and an exclusive brokerage agreement is enforceable only if both the client and the broker sign it.
A push toward their own affiliated lender, title company or inspector
Under the federal rules implementing RESPA, a referral to a settlement provider the referrer has an ownership or financial interest in has to be disclosed to you in writing, on a separate piece of paper, no later than the time of the referral, with the charges that provider generally makes. Apart from narrow exceptions, nobody may require you to use a particular provider. A recommendation is ordinary and often useful. A recommendation with a stake in it and no piece of paper is not.
A guaranteed number
Nobody can promise what a house will sell for, what it will appraise at, or that an offer will be accepted. An agent who does has shown you how they will handle the next uncomfortable question.
The representation agreement, and the four lines that matter
You will be asked to sign something, and in Nevada it now has to be paper: as of October 1, 2025 the definition of a brokerage agreement in NRS 645.005 is a written contract, the words allowing an oral one having been struck out. Read four things in it, and read them before the meeting ends rather than after.
- Term. How long it runs. A short initial term that you both extend is a reasonable ask, and an agent confident about their own service usually agrees to one.
- Exclusivity. Whether you may work with anyone else while it runs, and whether the agent is owed compensation on a home you find without them. Nevada requires an exclusive brokerage agreement to set out a definite, specified and complete termination, and bars any provision requiring you to notify the broker of your intent to cancel the exclusive features after the agreement has ended (NRS 645.320).
- How it ends. The cancellation route, in writing, and what survives it. A protection period naming homes they showed you is common and reasonable. One that quietly covers every home in the county is not.
- Compensation. The amount or the formula, and what happens if the other side offers less than that, because that gap lands in your closing costs or your pocket.
Nothing in this requires a signature in the room. Take the agreement home and read it there. An agent who implies otherwise has answered a question you had not asked yet.
Check what you are told against the county's own record
This is the part I care about, and it is why Kouzr is shaped the way it is. Every listing page here shows the county record beside the listing: what the assessor says the house is, when it was built, its floor area and lot size, and what it last recorded a sale for. Two accounts of one house, from two offices, one of which has no commission riding on the outcome.
Most of the time they agree. When they do not, the gap is usually innocent. A listing sheet is typed by a person, a permitted addition lands in one file and not the other, and price per square foot is only as good as the square footage under it. The point is not that anyone is lying. The point is that you can check in a few seconds, and that a good agent will be pleased you did and will explain the difference. How to read a county property record covers the fields, the listings carry the record on every page, and the calculators take it from there. Agent profiles on Kouzr are written and published by the agents themselves: we do not rank them, take a referral fee, or verify anyone's license, which is exactly why this post opens where it does.
If you decide not to use one
That is a real option rather than simply a saving. The work does not disappear, it moves to you, and the parts that move are the inspection period, the repair negotiation and the deadline tracking between acceptance and closing. Do you need a realtor to buy a house and how to buy a house without a realtor lay out the buyer side, and selling without one covers the other, and the working with an agent guide is the longer read on what a licensee owes you and what the commission pays for. Get a pre-approval either way, and run the payment on a real price in the payment calculator before the first interview rather than after it.
Sources
- Nevada Real Estate Division, the state regulator and its public licensee lookup.
- Nevada Revised Statutes chapter 645: 645.005 (a brokerage agreement is a written contract, amended 2025), 645.252 (duties of a licensee acting for more than one party, and the written consent required), 645.254 and 645.255 (duties to a client, and that they may not be waived), and 645.320 (an exclusive brokerage agreement must state a definite, specified and complete termination and must be signed by both parties).
- National Association of Realtors Code of Ethics, for what Realtor membership commits a member to and how a complaint is handled.
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Regulation X section 1024.15, affiliated business arrangements: the written disclosure on a separate piece of paper at the time of the referral, and the limits on requiring the use of a particular provider. Section 1024.14 covers referral fees and unearned fees.
- National Association of Realtors settlement practice changes, effective August 17, 2024: the written buyer agreement signed before touring a home, compensation stated as an objectively ascertainable amount, and offers of compensation off the MLS.
General information about hiring a real estate agent, not legal advice. Statutes and association rules change, and the current text governs. The Nevada sections are cited as an example of how a state writes these rules. Yours will differ, and your own regulator is the place to check. Nothing here recommends, ranks or vouches for any licensee or brokerage. Kouzr Inc. is a research and marketing platform, not a brokerage, and takes no referral fee and no part in any transaction.
