You interviewed the agent, chose the agent, signed an agreement with the agent. Then the contract went out, a transaction coordinator showed up in your inbox, and suddenly you had far less contact with the person you actually hired.

Nothing wrong with that on its own. Transaction coordinators can be valuable — a good one makes a transaction run more efficiently.

The question is whether the coordinator is supporting the agent you hired, or replacing them.

Two recent transactions show why buyers and sellers need to ask better questions before choosing an agent. At the end, I'll give you the questions that can reveal who will actually manage your transaction, what gets handed off after you sign, and how much of the agent you're really hiring.

When a deadline is expiring, who is making the decisions?

On the final day of a buyer's inspection period, a document needed to go out for signature. The buyer and seller had already agreed on it — nothing left to negotiate, nothing still in question. The only job left was to send it before the deadline.

Instead, the transaction coordinator had a question, contacted the lender, and held the document.

The inspection period expired that day.

The agreement was already made. Nothing remained to be negotiated. The document simply needed to go out for signature, and it didn't.

That wasn't a harmless delay. The buyer's deposit was on the line.

When the listing agent was asked about it the next day, her response was, "Why are you upset? He's going to sign it." She added that she'd been too busy to even eat dinner.

Busy? A signature was outstanding on a deadline that expired that day. This didn't warrant your attention?

A customer's contractual deadline doesn't know that the agent missed dinner. And "he's going to sign it" isn't an answer to why the deadline expired before he did.

The real question is why a transaction coordinator was making decisions about a document on deadline day — and why the agent responsible for that file wasn't close enough to stop it.

Where was the agent?

The other kind of handoff

More recently, the same problem showed up from the other direction.

The seller and listing broker had already spent hours gathering what the buyer needed for a condominium purchase. The buyer had the full condo documentation, and the property manager was cooperative and available to answer questions.

Florida gives buyers in applicable condo resales a statutory review period for required condo documents — depending on when they're received, a seven-day window excluding weekends and legal holidays, with specific cancellation and closing-extension rights. Condo buyers aren't expected to walk in blind.

The buyer also had a real estate professional of his own.

Then the transaction coordinator sent a checklist across the table: electric provider, water and sewer setup, trash location, cable and internet options, storage unit details, mailbox keys, parking assignments, preferred vendors, and anything else a new owner should know at possession.

Some of it had already been provided. The assigned parking space, for example, was right there in the condo rider.

And then there was this: the seller and listing broker were being asked to identify the cable and internet providers available to the buyer at the unit.

After that list arrived, the buyer's agent had already been told — twice — that the seller wasn't going through another unnecessary information-gathering exercise.

At some point, somebody has to read the file. And at some point, somebody has to do the buyer's research.

Are you servicing the customer or servicing the file?

Some of the answers were already in the documents that had been provided. Others could be obtained directly from the association, property manager, utility company or another appropriate source. Only the questions that genuinely remained unanswered and required information from the seller needed to come back across the table.

A buyer doesn't hire an agent to hand the seller's side a checklist and let the seller answer for him. He hires an agent to go find out the answers that can actually affect him.

That's the job: read the file. Verify what's missing. Call the association, the property manager, the utility company, whoever actually knows. Then bring the genuinely unanswered questions to the appropriate person.

Sending a generic list across the table also creates a written record of whatever the seller's side supplies. If something later turns out to be wrong, the buyer's file now contains a record showing what the listing side said.

Buyers don't hire real estate professionals hoping for good documentation to argue with later. They hire them to read what's already there and verify what isn't, before they own the property.

Read the documents. Understand the contract and addenda. Talk to the property manager. Verify information with the appropriate source. Know what hasn't been answered, then ask the right person — not the other side's listing agent for a second copy.

The buyer doesn't want to hear after closing, "Well, we asked the listing agent."

The buyer owns the property by then.

The other side isn't part of your team

There's another consequence when transaction management breaks down like this: it can unnecessarily antagonize the other side.

That isn't good representation either.

Buyers and sellers have different interests, but everyone still has to cooperate long enough to close. A lender creates a problem. Title finds something unexpected. Somebody needs an extension, or a document signed fast, or a little flexibility from the other side.

Professional goodwill has value in those moments.

Asking again for information that's already been provided, expecting the other agent to do work that belongs on your side, or letting support staff create unnecessary friction doesn't demonstrate toughness.

It just makes the transaction harder for the customer.

But isn't Florida a transaction-broker state?

Usually, yes.

Florida law presumes a licensee is operating as a transaction broker unless a single-agent or no-brokerage relationship has been established in writing.

A transaction broker doesn't carry the same fiduciary duty to the customer that a single agent does — Florida law describes it as a limited form of representation.

Limited doesn't mean nonexistent.

Among the duties Florida law puts directly on a transaction broker: skill, care and diligence in the transaction.

That's not a standard invented for this article. It's Florida Statute §475.278.

So whether an agent uses a transaction coordinator isn't the real question.

The real question is who's exercising the professional judgment the customer thought they were hiring.

High production doesn't answer that question

Buyers and sellers are often told to ask agents how many homes they sell.

Not a bad question — but the answer may tell you something very different from what you think it does.

High production can mean real experience and a successful business. It can also mean an extensive team and heavy delegation. Neither is good or bad on its own.

But the customer interviewing an agent should know the difference.

Production tells you how much business an agent does. It doesn't tell you how much of the agent you're going to get.

If someone sells an extraordinary number of properties a year, don't just be impressed by the number. Ask how that volume is handled.

The more you sell, what gets handed off?

That answer may matter more to the person with exactly one house to buy or sell than the number does.

Ask better questions before you hire an agent

Don't ask questions that invite a sales answer. "Do you provide excellent service?" isn't useful. Neither is, "Will you take good care of me?" Nobody's going to say no.

Ask questions that force an agent to explain what actually happens after you sign.

Once we're under contract, what parts of the transaction will you personally handle?

Listen for specifics. "I have a great team" isn't a description of the agent's involvement.

Who else will communicate directly with me, and what is that person's role?

You interviewed the agent. You're entitled to know who else becomes part of the relationship.

What do you hand off to a transaction coordinator, and what will you never hand off?

The second half of that question tells you more than the first.

Can the transaction coordinator make decisions about documents, deadlines or communications without speaking with you?

There's a difference between coordinating an electronic signature and deciding whether a time-sensitive document should go out for one.

Who personally tracks every contractual deadline, and what happens as one approaches?

Don't settle for "We have a system." Ask what the system is and who's accountable for it.

How many transactions are you typically handling at one time, and as your volume increases, what gets delegated?

A production number means a lot more once you understand the operating model behind it.

When the other side asks me to do something that isn't required or may not be in my interest, who decides how to respond?

A customer shouldn't automatically become responsible for every task the other party decides to request.

When information can be verified through an association, property manager, lender, title company, utility provider or another primary source, who verifies it?

For buyers especially, there's an enormous difference between independently verifying information and just documenting what the other side said.

If something unusual happens, at what point do you personally step back into the transaction?

If the answer suggests the agent only shows up after something's already gone wrong, that's useful to know before you hire them.

And finally:

If I call you at 4:30 on the day an important contractual deadline expires, will you know what's still outstanding?

That question doesn't require a sales pitch. It requires an answer.

Transaction coordinators aren't the problem. Good ones are valuable, and agents shouldn't be burning professional time on every administrative task themselves.

The distinction is whether the team supports the agent or substitutes for the agent.

You don't usually interview the transaction coordinator. You don't select them. You may not even know who that person is when you sign the brokerage agreement.

You interview the agent.

Before you hire one, find out whether that's the person you're actually going to get.

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