Frequently Asked Questions
- Why was Agent Aquarium created?
- Does it cost me anything?
- How do I search for agents?
- How do I contact an agent?
- Why are agents' names kept anonymous?
- In which markets is Agent Aquarium active?
- Where did the name Agent Aquarium come from?
- Is every real estate agent in the greater Austin area in your database?
- How does Agent Aquarium make money?
- Commissions: We are a real estate brokerage firm (TREC License #9000305) whose agents' performance data is in the database along with all other participating agents. If you select one of us to be your agent, we will earn a commission for representing you and will be paid at closing.
- Referral fees: When a consumer uses our website to choose a participating agent who works for another company, we charge that agent an industry-standard referral fee of 25% of their gross commission.
- Realtor review: If you already have an agent in mind but you would still like to verify their performance, we can contact their broker and ask for permission to display their data to you. If they give us permission to share the information, you will pay a small fee to review their data. If they decline permission, you pay nothing. At that point, you can either proceed on faith with your original agent or use Agent Aquarium to find an agent whose production has been verified on our website.
- Advertisements and affiliate marketing: Various companies will advertise their services on Agent Aquarium's website, and Agent Aquarium will seek affiliate agreements to offer discounts on the services of certain vendors to visitors to our site.
- What if I have a bad experience with an agent I find on Agent Aquarium?
- Is the information on your site 100% accurate?
- Is this all of the information?
Simply put, we founded Agent Aquarium to give people a better way to find the right real estate agent for their specific needs. Too often, people choose a real estate agent based on a sales pitch, without verifying the agent's experience or actual performance. Because real estate transactions are the biggest financial decisions most people will make in their lifetime, this can be a very costly mistake. So we asked ourselves this question: Would we want to know more, or less, about our realtor? For us, the answer was obvious, so we founded Agent Aquarium to provide an easy way for people to get informed, make an educated decision, and select the right realtor to help them buy and sell real estate.
No. You can use all of Agent Aquarium's searching services free of charge.
You can search for agents in two ways. First, if you are a buyer, search for properties as you normally would. Agent Aquarium will show you who the most active buyer agents are, based upon your property search parameters. Second, from the agent search page, you can search for agents using a location such as an address, ZIP Code, city, etc. Here, Agent Aquarium will tell you who the most active listing and buyer agents are in the search area.
When you find an agent or agents you are interested in speaking with, you can contact them directly from our site. To contact an agent, you'll simply select "Contact" on the agent's profile page. You'll then be prompted to fill out the rest of your needs profile if you haven't already done so. Agent Aquarium will contact the agent, who can then review your profile and will either accept you as a potential client or decline your request if they feel they are unable to help you. Through your account, you will be able to see when the agent has been notified and when they respond. If the agent accepts you as a potential client, your contact information will be displayed to them and theirs to you. From there you can contact each other, make sure it's a good fit for both of you, and move forward.
For many of the same reasons we keep consumer information private, we keep agent information private during the comparison stage. Agents are assigned a unique Agent Aquarium ID which allows Agent Aquarium to provide important data to the consumer while maintaining the agent's privacy. When the agent chooses to accept a potential referral, formal introductions are made. This allows Agent Aquarium to provide serious, qualified referrals to real estate agents.
Currently Agent Aquarium is focused on servicing the greater Austin, Texas area but plans to expand to San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston in the near future. The Agent Aquarium website will always reflect all current markets served. If you are interested in those other markets, please check back periodically, or contact us at info@agentaquarium.com in order to receive email updates as we expand into those areas.
From the company's inception, we have made it our goal to bring variety and transparency to the traditional real estate model. We realized that the ability to choose a specific area, see the agents who had been most active, and review the results they achieved for their clients was actually a lot like looking at fish in an aquarium. In effect, we were observing real estate agents in their natural habitat. That's when it dawned on us... we had created an Agent Aquarium!
No. MLS rules require us to get permission from every real estate agent's sponsoring broker to include their performance data in the Agent Aquarium database. While every broker is invited and encouraged to allow their agents to participate, not every broker feels that this level of transparency is in their best interests. If you have an agent in mind, let us know. We'll be happy to contact their broker and ask permission to share their performance data.
While we cannot guarantee that every customer will have the perfect experience with an agent selected through our site, we place great value on integrity and expect agents to uphold the highest of standards. If for any reason you believe an agent has been dishonest, unethical, or unlawful in any way, please contact us immediately. We will provide you with the steps necessary to file formal complaints at the appropriate Boards. Pending the outcome, the agent will be deactivated from our website. If inappropriate conduct is confirmed by the governing body, the agent will no longer be allowed to use Agent Aquarium services.
The information on our site comes from the MLS which is a third party source which we believe to be reliable. It is however, a user input system and as such, from time to time users may inadvertently make a typo in a field as they input their transactions. It happens, but in our experience that seems to be the exception and not the rule. In every market, there are also teams which usually pass all the MLS transactions through the team lead. In those cases, we ask that they specify themselves as a team when they create their profiles.
No. There are always transactions that occur outside of the MLS. Pocket listings, new construction, custom builds and property in foreclose or sold at auction are the most common examples. The information we display only pertains to MLS listed property, which is the vast majority and therefore we believe, an excellent barometer for comparing agents. We encourage agents to highlight their non-MLS transactions in their profiles to give consumers a full picture of their accomplishments.
