It’s almost become cliche in real estate marketing that hiring a husband/wife, mother/daughter, or any other team of Realtors you’re getting more representation for the same price as having a single professional help you.

So what are the specific advantages to working with a single agent versus a "team"? And here’s a disclaimer- I work in a team concept.

I started a team because I wanted to be able to accomplish certain things with my career that I could not do as well on my own.

Let’s look at a scenario…

Some buyers are looking for their first home and meet me. Their lease runs up in one month so they would like to find a home and be under contract as soon as possible so they can take possession when their lease is up. I take them out looking for homes on Tuesday. They don’t find the right home, so they want to go out looking on Wednesday. But I have meetings and clients booked for Wednesday- no problem, my wife takes the buyers out and they find the home they want to buy. Good thing they found it when they did because another offer came in today. She writes up the contract with the buyers and the sellers take their offer.

The inspection is done and they discover some work that needs to be done to the house. They write an inspection addendum asking the seller to fix these items and the seller responds by saying they are willing to pay up up to $2000 to have these things fixed and no more (they still have a backup offer waiting and feel the home was priced well). The buyers speak to some contractors and are told the work will cost between $2500-$3000 and the buyers won’t have the extra money after paying their closing costs and down payment. My wife talks to me about it and I call a contractor that our team (seven people) send a lot of business to. He agrees to do the work for $2000 so we can get the deal done.

The appraisal deadline gets near and the day before the buyers getting nervous. If the home doesn’t appraise they may need to find another property and now they only have a couple weeks before they have to be out of their apartment. The lender isn’t answering calls. They call my wife but she’s not avaiable. They call me but I am in a meeting. They call Hillary, our assistant and she answers the phone and assures them that she has spoken to the lender and the appraisal will be completed within the hour. After the appraisal comes in 45 minutes later my wife calls the buyers and tells them the good news- the appraisal has come in above listing price. At closing the buyers are happy and their overall experience was very pleasant.

In this same situation if I did not have a team the buyers may have missed out seeing the home they wanted because it would have been sold the Wed I couldn’t go out with them. If I didn’t have a team sending so much business to this contractor he may not have agreed to do the work for $2000. And the buyers might have been stressed out trying to find someone to tell them about the appraisal because they couldn’t get a hold of me.

Some teams of agents don’t give the same level of intimate service because clients are treated like they on an assembly line and they sign with an agent and then never speak to that agent again- only numerous other people doing numerous other pieces of the transaction. This would be a concern and those clients probably wouldn’t have a good experience.

A single agent who only has one or two clients at a time may have plenty of time to devote each client- always being there. But they may not have the same pull with contractors, lenders, title, home warranty companies, and other service providers to help their clients. And if that agent is ever not available the client doesn’t have anybody else to talk to.

And because I have a team I do much more business than I would do otherwise, so I know the market better and have much more experience than I would as a single agent. And that’s where I believe my value lies- with my experience and knowledge in the market I service.

Two heads can be better than one- not always, but often…