Selling a home is a major transaction that must be handled carefully. A majority of the time, these sales will be handled through a real estate agent. That being said, it’s of tremendous importance to hire the right agent to maximize your profitability and reduce the risk of your home languishing on the market. Here are some tips on what you should keep an eye out for in a real estate agent.

Don’t Mistake Kindness for Market Knowledge

There are many agents that use their personality to their advantage. Meaning, they take the opposite approach of a salesman and try to swoon you into hiring them just by being friendly and personable. This doesn’t necessarily translate into sales, so you might want to think twice before hiring on the spot.

Quality Over Quantity

Boasting a large amount of sales is always a nice statistic to have on your resume. However, ask your real estate agent questions that refer to the quality of his or her sales. For example, how many houses have they sold in comparison to the amount they listed? How many homes were sold near the asking price? If your agent sold 50 homes, but listed over 150, their success rate is an underwhelming 33%. That number doesn’t instill confidence however way you put it.

Don’t Hire a Salesman

Many real estate agents obtain their clients through a salesman-like approach. Just because they can sell you on making the transaction clean and quick, doesn’t necessarily mean that they have the marketing knowledge to get it done.

Bio: Kuba Jewgieniew is the head of Realty ONE Group, a real estate brokerage firm with offices in California, Nevada, and Arizona.