Do Your Research!

I was googling Warren's Gate today to see what would come up, and I decided to go a step further and google "Clemmons real estate" and "Clemmons Realtors." I was VERY surprised by what I found. One of the first sites that came up was Realtor.com. I am not knocking Realtor.com at all, as I have been using it for very effective marketing for a couple of years. But what surprised me was that under the supposed "Clemmons specialists", I didn't recognize half the names! I don't claim to personally know every agent that works that area, but I can say with confidence, as long as I have been working in Clemmons, that if I haven't at least heard your name, you haven't been around long. If you havent been actively engaged in selling real estate in a certain area for long, how can you be an expert? My point in writing this is just to warn consumers when choosing an agent. Just because an agent markets himself or herself as a neighborhood expert or city expert or expert for a certain niche, that doesn't make it so. Sit them down and ask them to show you a resume, explain their ties to that particular market, provide examples of homes they have marketed there, etc. The internet is wonderful, but it just isn't regulated. I could call myself an expert on blue Italian frogs, but that doesn't make it so.