The decision to buy a house has to be one of the hardest you have taken since it involves a lot of financial planning, apart from searching for the house. So, now you need a real estate agent who can help you search for the right house. But before you entrust the agent with the task of house hunting, you have to verify his credentials and know if he is genuine or taking you for a ride. This will help you to assess his abilities, background and strengths. Here are 2 ways to verify the credentials of a real estate agent.

1. Look up an Agent’s Real Estate License: A genuine real estate agent will have a license and rather than take him at face value, check the license. The record of the license will be available with .The Association of Real Estate License Law Official You can login into their website and and check for yourself whether your realtor is genuine or a fraud. It will provide you with the accurate license numbers.

With this detail, you can easily visit the licensing division in your state and verify the number. This search will give you the year in which the license was issued originally and By doing this you can come to know when the license was issued to the agent. In some states, you will also get to know if any complaints have been filed against the real estate agent or if the license is suspended. But a simple search on Google may provide you with some leads about the agent.

2.         Check the Production Record Of The Agent: The Multiple Listing Service can give you the production record of the agent. This record will reveal the actual number of houses that the agent has sold in a year. Remember that a good agent is able to sell at least one home in a month. If his record is abysmal, you will get to know it from the production record.

Remember never to choose an agent who lies about his specialty, experience and listings. Once a liar, always a liar!

Other things that you can do to verify his authenticity are asking for references, testimonials and others. If the agent has a website, then the chances are that he may have listed testimonials on his website but many agents withhold client details when publishing testimonials for security reasons. In that case, you can ask your agent for giving the phone number of the client and talk to him for surety.

Real Estate is one of the booming industries in the world. However, there have also been many cases of fraud in this business in recent times. So, before choosing a real estate agent inquire about the agent’s authenticity.