Key Question You MUST ask Before You Hire ANYONE

Q: We are buying a rental property and need to hire an attorney and contractor to fix up the place.  Any tips on what to ask potential candidates? Margie & Fred, North Middleton, PA

A: The most important factor to determine before you hire anyone to do a job is their experience doing whatever it is you’re hiring them to do. So, before you hire anyone for any job, ask them if they’ve done the job before and if their answer is yes, ask them how many times they’ve done it, how long have they been doing it and when was the last time they did it?

Notice, I didn’t say what most people ask which is “Can you do this job?” If you ask a generalist attorney for example if they can do real estate transactions, they, smelling an opportunity will likely say yes. Nobody is good at anything the first time they attempt it–try to remember the first time you tried to ride a bike! When you hire someone without experience, you are essentially paying them to learn how to do their job rather than optimizing for getting the job done as well as possible from someone who has already made most of the mistakes that any experienced person has normally made.

So, don’t ask if they can do the job, ask them specifically…

1) If they’ve done the job before

2) How many times they’ve done this job before and

3) Date when they last did the job to make sure it was recent.

Thanks for your question, Marjie & Fred. For more real estate information and tips visit my blog at geraldlucas.com.