Chuck Lieber was nominated in the top 3% of agents in Minnesota regarding Customer Satisfaction

Reprinted from the Mpls St. Paul magazine

We surveyed recent homebuyers, mortgage and title companies and our subscribers to find the

TOP REAL ESTATE AGENTS

in and around the twin cities.

Best of the Best

This year's Super Real Estate Agents represent less than 3 percent of the licensed real estate agents in Minnesota. As they were identified, we heard stories of agents surpassing client expectations and norms of service-and we were told of agents focused on building lasting client relationships, not simply on completing a transaction.

Perhaps not surprisingly, more than half of all of the nominators of the Super Agents indicated that personal integrity was the number one attribute they looked for in selecting an agent.

How (and Why) We Identified Them 

It's a cliche, but we're about to repeat it: A home is typically the largest purchase (and sale) you are likely to make as a consumer.

The person who helps most in the process of buying and selling a home is invariably a licensed real estate agent-and naturally, you want a good one. You want someone with knowledge of the market, the technical skills needed to advance toward a successful closing, sufficient empathy to discern your needs in a house, and large measures of personal and professional integrity.

How do you find the right agent? It isn't always easy. There are 27,000 licensed real estate agents in Minnesota, and no easy way to find the right one for you. Research conducted by Crescendo Partners, an Eagan-based provider of quantitative market research, indicates that perhaps 70 percent of home- buyers hire an agent because of a referral by a friend, family member, or coworker.

We formed a partnership with Crescendo to create another form of referral, and the result is the roster of 765 "Super Real Estate Agents" that appears on the following pages. Each has been strongly recommended by homebuyers (or sellers) who have worked with them, have been checked for disciplinary actions, and have been screened by a panel of real estate industry experts. Many have been employed several times by individuals who nominated them, and some have been nominated by as many as ten people.

The Selection Process

In April and May of this year, Crescendo Partners mailed 18,800 nomination ballots to individuals throughout the Twin Cities area, including 7,500 to recent homebuyers with fresh experiences with real estate agents; 1,300 ballots to metropolitan mortgage and title companies, where the skills and preparation needed for successful closings are discerned; and 5,000 each to subscribers of Mpls.St.Paul Magazine and Twin Cities Business Monthly. The readers of both magazines are affluent, educated, and of a median age at which they are likely to have bought and sold several homes.

Each respondent was asked to nominate real estate agents who they knew through personal experience and to assess them according to six criteria: integrity, knowledge, communication skills, closing preparation, professionalism, and overall customer service. Only original ballots (no copies) returned in specially designed envelopes were accepted as a valid nomination. By mid-June, stacks of nomination forms had arrived at our offices, and Crescendo partners took on the task of scoring the nomination forms.

Each nominated agent was then screened against the licensing database at the Minnesota Department of Commerce to ensure that each holds a valid real estate license and has had no enforcement actions.

Nominated agents who passed the screening process were reviewed by a Blue Ribbon Panel of twenty industry experts active in and with knowledge of the real estate industry. Comments provided by the panel were incorporated into the final score for each agent to arrive at the final list of agents. Safeguards were built into the Blue Ribbon review process to reduce the ability of panel members to influence the composition of the list on the basis of affiliation with any real estate brokerage.