How to Get a Real Estate Agent to Work Harder for You

Agents, like everyone else, put their best hours where they expect the best return. The typical REALTOR® works 35 hours a week across a median of nine transaction sides a year, plus the prospecting that produces the next nine. (NAR 2026 Member Profile) Your file competes for those hours with every other file on the desk. You cannot make an agent care, but you can make yourself the client who is easiest to do excellent work for, and you can structure the engagement so that excellent work is what pays. This post covers both.

What moves an agent’s effort

Lever one: commit, in writing, for a short term

Agents work hardest for clients they are sure to be paid by. That is not cynicism; it is how a commission business survives, and 73% of REALTORS® have no other occupation. (NAR 2026 Member Profile) A buyer who has not signed an agreement is, from the agent’s side, a prospect who may buy through someone else; a buyer who has signed is a client. Written agreements are now required before touring anyway. (NAR, What the Settlement Means)

The leverage is in the term. A 30-to-60-day agreement that renews if you are happy gives the agent full commitment and gives you a built-in performance review. NAR notes a buyer agreement’s term can be anything from “one day, one month, one house, one zip code.” (NAR, Written Buyer Agreements 101) The same logic applies to listings: Mississippi requires a definite expiration date; a 90-day listing with a renewal conversation beats a 12-month listing with no checkpoint. (MREC Rule 3.2(B))

Lever two: be ready to transact

Nothing makes an agent work harder than a client who can actually buy. In 2026, 94% of mortgage buyers were pre-approved before buying, and 47% got pre-approved within their first three homebuying activities. (Zillow Consumer Housing Trends Report 2026, Buyers) A buyer with a pre-approval letter, a known budget, and a clear timeline is a buyer whose showings turn into offers. For sellers, readiness means the house is prepared, the disclosure statement is complete, and showings can happen on short notice. An agent will push a ready listing to every buyer’s agent they know; an unready one sits.

Lever three: write down what you want

Half of buyers say the thing they most want from an agent is “help find the right home to purchase.” (NAR 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers) An agent cannot do that well from a vague conversation. Send a one-page brief: price ceiling, areas, must-haves, deal-breakers, trade-offs you would accept. Update it after every tour (“the garage matters more than I thought; the fourth bedroom matters less”). An agent with a clear brief can move the moment a listing appears; one without it texts you first and waits. Post #22 in this series shows how this speeds up showings.

For sellers, the equivalent is a written statement of your goals: net proceeds you need, the date you must be out, what you will and will not repair. An agent negotiating with that document in hand works with authority; one without it has to call you about every term.

Lever four: respond fast and decide cleanly

Effort is reciprocal. An agent who gets a showing slot and hears nothing for five hours stops fighting for slots. Most buyers prefer text (53%) over phone (33%) for agent communication (Zillow, Agents Add Value); whichever you choose, answer within the hour on anything with a deadline. Just as important, decide. “Let me think about it” for three days on a counteroffer costs your agent credibility with the other side, and credibility is part of what you hired. Post #32 in this series sets a response standard for agents; hold yourself to a similar one.

Lever five: set measurable expectations

Agents, like most people, do what is measured. Agree at the start on a weekly written update for sellers, showing feedback within a day, and a response-time standard. Ask for the list-to-sale ratio and days on market of the agent’s recent listings so you both know what good looks like. When something slips, say so once, in writing, with the standard attached. Post #17 in this series covers how to evaluate the work once it is underway. Most agents respond well to a client who is specific; the ones who do not have told you something useful early.

Lever six: align the fee with the outcome

A fee is “fully negotiable and not set by law.” (NAR) Most people negotiate only the rate. The structure matters more for effort. Economists Levitt and Syverson showed why: on a conventional commission, an agent’s own homes sold for “about 3.7 percent more” after staying on the market “almost 10 days longer,” because an extra $10,000 for the client is worth only a few hundred dollars to the agent, while a quick close is worth the whole fee. (NBER Digest)

Options that change the math:

• A tiered listing fee that rises above a target price, so the agent shares more in the upside. One industry example: “you might agree to a total 5.5% commission if the home sells for your target price, and 5% if it sells below that.” (HomeLight)
• A flat fee for buyers, which removes any incentive to steer you toward a more expensive home; buyer agreements must now state the fee and the agent “may not receive compensation from any source that exceeds the amount or rate agreed to with the buyer.” (NAR, Written Buyer Agreements 101)
• A fee tied to a written service list, so you are paying for defined work rather than a percentage of a number.

Be careful with the opposite move. Cutting the fee hard without changing structure can cut effort with it; the research on discount listings finds similar prices but a lower probability of selling. (Rutherford and Yavas, Real Estate Economics, 2012) Post #23 in this series covers that trade-off.

Lever seven: be a referral worth earning

Agents’ businesses run on repeat and referral clients: 37% of sellers found their agent through a friend, neighbor, or relative, and 29% used an agent they had worked with before. (NAR 2025 Profile) Among buyers, 91% would use their agent again or recommend them. (NAR 2025 Profile) Every good agent is working, in part, for the next client you might send. Say early that you refer people and that you write reviews; it is true of most clients and it reminds the agent what is at stake beyond this fee. Then follow through when the work is good.

What does not work

Threats do not; an agent who is told “I’ll go elsewhere” every week stops investing in a client who seems to be leaving. Constant calls do not; they consume the hours you want spent on your file. Withholding information does not; an agent who learns your real budget or your real deadline late has been working toward the wrong target. And micromanaging the marketing rarely does; hire for judgment, set the standard, and let the agent work.

When effort is not the problem

Sometimes the agent is working hard and the house is not selling because the price is wrong, or the buyer is not finding anything because the criteria do not exist at the budget. Before concluding your agent is lazy, ask: are showings happening and producing no offers (price), or not happening at all (marketing and access)? Is the agent sending you every matching listing and none fit (criteria), or sending nothing (effort)? The fix for a pricing problem is in post #24 in this series, and no amount of agent effort substitutes for it.

Frequently asked questions