Finding a real estate agent who has done a divorce sale before

Most agents are competent and most have never handled one. A divorce sale has two clients who may not be speaking, a court order neither of them was told about, and a closing date somebody else controls. This page is about what makes it different, and how to tell whether the person in front of you knows.

Want the longer version, including what the credentials mean and how to check one? Read Divorce real estate agents: what the credentials actually mean.

The short version4 points · tap one to jump to it

1. What is actually different about a divorce sale — Not the marketing. The listing photographs, the pricing strategy and the open house are the same as any other sale.
2. Questions that tell you whether they have done one — You do not need to test anybody.
3. When an agent is the wrong first call
4. Want us to connect you with a divorce-trained and vetted agent in your market?

In this subject 5

What is actually different about a divorce sale

Not the marketing. The listing photographs, the pricing strategy and the open house are the same as any other sale. What is different sits underneath:

• There are two clients, and their interests may not line up. One may want the fastest possible sale and the other the highest possible number. Those are different listings.
• An automatic order may already restrict what either of you can do. In many states it takes effect on filing. An agent who has not met one will not think to ask.
• The timing is not yours. A decree, a buyout deadline or a deferred sale order can set the date, and it may not be the date the market would choose.
• What you net is a tax question before it is a price question. The capital gains exclusion is $500,000 filing jointly and $250,000 single, and when you sell relative to when you divorce can decide which one you get. The detail is here.
• Communication has to be even-handed and documented. Anything said to one spouse and not the other becomes an argument later, sometimes in front of a judge.

Questions that tell you whether they have done one

You do not need to test anybody. Four questions separate an agent who has handled a divorce sale from one who has not:

1. “Is there an automatic order in my state, and does it affect this?” An agent who has done this will know what you mean. One who has not will ask what that is — which is a fair answer, and it tells you where you are.
2. “If we disagree about price, what do you do?” The right answer involves putting the disagreement in writing to both of you at once, not privately persuading one.
3. “Who do you copy on what?” Both spouses, and the attorneys where there are attorneys. Every time.
4. “How many of these have you done?” A number, not a feeling. And an agent who says they have done twenty and never had an unhappy client has not done twenty.

When an agent is the wrong first call

A great many people who reach a page like this should not be listing anything yet, and some should not be selling at all. An agent is the wrong first call if:

• nothing has been filed and you have not taken advice — start at deciding or the first thirty days;
• an automatic order is in place and you have not checked what it bars;
• a buyout is on the table — what that actually costs is a different calculation, and it earns us nothing;
• a deferred sale or nesting arrangement would serve the children better. Also in keeping the house, also earns us nothing.

Help with the house sets out all four routes — a buyout, a deferred sale, a sale now, or the court deciding — in the same detail, on purpose.

Want us to connect you with a divorce-trained and vetted agent in your market?

We do not publish a directory of agents and we do not sell placement on one. If you ask, you get an introduction to a specific person, chosen before you asked.

Keep reading

• Help with the house — the four things that can happen to it
• Keeping the house — the buyout, the carrying cost, and deferred sale
• Selling the marital home — capital gains, basis and timing
• What two households cost — one home becoming two
• Automatic orders — what filing switches on by itself
• What we require of an agent — the bar in full

* How we are paid. Hyleri, who writes this site, is a licensed real estate agent with Compass in Connecticut and Florida. In Fairfield County, Connecticut and Palm Beach County, Florida she may work with you herself, paid a commission by whoever sells the house. Anywhere else she introduces a local agent and, if that sale completes, receives a referral fee out of that agent’s commission, through Compass — never added to what you pay. Nothing else on The Cusp works this way: nobody pays to be in the professional directory. How we make money has the whole picture. Agents: the divorce training is free, by request, and Cusp Certified is what happens after you pass it.