The Top Real Estate Agents in Mississauga

If you came here looking for a list of the top real estate agents in Mississauga, I’m sorry to disappoint you.

You can leave right now.

But if you’re reading this post you’re also about to make one of the biggest financial decisions of your life. And you aren’t going to find the answer in a list. Nor should you.

Please read on because what I’m going to say is likely going to save/make you thousands of dollars.

What is a Top Real Estate Agent?

When you search for the term “top real estate agents in mississauga” you don’t really come up with many results. What you will find is the websites of some of the top producers in Mississauga and I implore you to check them out and see just how little value they offer.

There is no real information about neighbourhoods. There is no information about schools. There’s nothing outside of listings and general/cliche information that’s been mass-produced by marketing companies. It’s the lazy bus ad style of marketing that screams “Buy or Sell With Me!”.

In today’s Internet age it’s shocking that many of the top producers wouldn’t invest in the content of their websites to bring you real information about the city. Instead, what they’ve done is spend the money on SEO to have their websites show up first but unfortunately they offer consumers no real value.

The Sorry State of Realtor Advertising

As a Realtor, the biggest thing I notice on a daily basis is the barrage of advertising that exists. Bus ads, public benches and billboards are abound with the face of the next great Realtor. I swear we own a 95% market share of bus and bench ads. The other 5% is for personal injury lawyers. 

The majority of these ads are pretty uninspiring. Most of them just say “Buy or Sell With Me!”. I mean, if you’re going to spend thousands of dollars on advertising you should at least put a little bit of thought into how exactly you’re going to communicate your value. For anyone that can’t do that, well, it says everything you really need to know about them. 

The majority of agents are too lazy to come up with creative copy. Some simply resort to misleading marketing gimmicks to get their foot in the door. For example, the infamous “Sell Your Home in 30 days or I’ll Buy It***!”gimmick. That one has more asterisks attached to it than the American flag.

Finally, you’ll see things like “free home evaluation” stated as if any realtor in the history of real estate has ever charged for a home evaluation.

The #1 Claim to Fame

That’s the last type of marketing that I’d like to touch on. The very top producers in the industry will pepper their advertising with claims that they were the top 1% in X brokerage, top 1% in the region or even the top 1% in Canada.

Some mention that they sell X amount of homes every X days or talk about the volume of dollars of real estate that they’ve sold. But, again for some of them, if you look at the asterisk beside the claim it may not even be current. You were the top realtor in your brokerage from 2010-2012? That’s great…as a consumer all I can think is “What happened since then?”.

My personal favourite comes from Dave Foreman out in Cambridge. Now, Dave is totally poking fun at the whole “top agent” advertising that people can get obsessed with and his marketing really brings up a good point.

Who cares who is the Top Real Estate Agent in Mississauga?

If you want the best burger do you go to McDonalds? How about the best clothes – do you go to WalMart? If you want to watch the best hockey do you watch the Leafs? (sorry fellow Leafs fans…I am shameless self-deprecating fan!)

I think you get the point. Just because something sells the most volume doesn’t make it the best quality or the best for you.

Many of the people that are top producers are fantastic agents that have gotten to a point where they’ve grown their business. However, if you opt for the services of that team are you going to get the big dog or the kid that just got his license and joined the team? Or perhaps you’ll get the agent who just wasn’t good enough to cut it on their own so they joined the team to receive the leads all those marketing dollars created.

Or perhaps you do get the big dog but you’re client #7 that she’s currently handling. Are you guaranteed to get the attention that you need?

Who is the Best Realtor For You?

The point of this post isn’t to rag on top producing-agents. I am one as well. 

My point is to challenge consumers to do the work that us realtors are often so lazy to do in our advertising claims. And that’s to do the research to find someone who is best for you. Look past the advertising claims and fancy marketing materials. Look past the dollar volume they claim to have sold as well. Because in my opinion the best realtors that I’ve worked with are ones that let their skills do the talking. 

These realtors have been in the business for a good amount of time, are organized, friendly and communicate well with others. They know their market and understand what it takes to buy/sell a home. They’re not necessarily in the top 1% but they’ve carved out a great business for themselves and devote their attention and energy to their clients.

How do you find that realtor? Interview them. Read their content that they should be producing in the digital age. Ask friends or families about their experiences with their realtor and ask them to be brutally honest. And remember that #1 doesn’t always mean that they will be the best fit for you.