How to Find a Real Estate Agent in Your Area

Mississippi has roughly 10,500 active real estate licenses: about 3,700 brokers and 6,800 salespersons. (Real Estate License Database, from MREC records) Finding one is not the problem. Finding one who is active in your area, in your price range, and worth hiring takes a little method. Here is where people actually find agents, which sources are reliable, and a four-step process that takes about an hour.

Where people find agents

Source: NAR 2025 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report, Exhibit 4-6

NAR’s newer 2025 Profile puts the referral share at 43% for all buyers and 49% for first-time buyers. (NAR 2025 Profile, via Rhode Island REALTORS®) Online channels are growing but still secondary: 33% of buyers said online research “played a key role in how they chose their agent,” and 36% of sellers found their agent through online channels, up from 15% in 2018. (Zillow Group, 2025 Consumer Housing Trends Report for Agents)

The takeaway: most people get a name from someone they know, and increasingly check that name online before calling. Both halves of that are worth doing deliberately.

Step 1: Collect three names, not one

Ask people who bought or sold in your area in the last two years, not five. Markets and agents change. Ask specifically: “Would you use them again, and what went wrong?” Everyone has a story about something going wrong; what you want to know is how the agent handled it.

Add a name or two from outside your circle. Drive the neighborhood you want and note whose signs are on the homes that sold, not just the ones listed; a “Sold” rider means the agent closed there. Open houses let you watch an agent work for twenty minutes without commitment; 43% of buyers found open houses very useful. (NAR 2025 Profile, via Rhode Island REALTORS®)

Step 2: Verify the license

Before you call anyone, look each name up on the Mississippi Real Estate Commission’s public search. (MREC Find Licensee) You are checking four things: the license is active, the license type (salesperson, broker, or broker associate), the original issue date, and the sponsoring brokerage. Then skim the Commission’s disciplinary actions page for the name. (MREC Disciplinary) About 1,000 Mississippi licensees were first licensed in the past 12 months (CompCurve, from MREC data); there is nothing wrong with a new agent, but the issue date tells you if you are about to be an early client.

Step 3: Check the track record where it counts

Online reviews are a reasonable screen. Ninety-two percent of consumers read reviews when searching for local businesses, and 88% form an opinion before reading ten of them. (Zillow, citing BrightLocal research) Read the most recent ones and look for specifics: addresses, problems solved, timelines. Five-star reviews that all say “great to work with” tell you little.

Then go past the reviews. Most portal profiles list an agent’s recent sales. Check whether those sales are in your county and your price range. An agent with thirty closings in another part of the state is not local to you no matter what the ad says.

Step 4: Interview two of the three

Seventy-four percent of buyers and 80% of sellers interview only one agent. (Realtor.com, citing NAR’s 2025 Profile) Interviewing two gives you a comparison for the questions that matter: representation, fee, local closings, and references. I cover the twelve questions to ask in a separate post.

What “local” should mean

An agent licensed in Mississippi can legally sell anywhere in Mississippi. That does not make them local to Brandon, Flowood, Madison, Clinton, or Gulfport. Local means: they have closed in your area in the last year, they know which subdivisions have HOA quirks and which streets flood, they know the inspectors and lenders who actually perform, and they can price your house from memory before pulling comps. Agent’s “knowledge of the neighborhood” was the deciding factor for 8% of buyers (NAR 2025 Generational Trends Report), which is low; most people assume it and do not check. Check.

Where to find me

HomesRX is based in Brandon and works Rankin, Madison, and Hinds counties and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. My broker license is on the MREC lookup; my recent closings are listed on SoldByZakk.com; and I would rather be one of the two agents you interview than the only call you make. If you are outside the areas I work, say so and I will refer you to a broker who is actually local, with no referral fee attached to your transaction.

Frequently asked questions