How to Find a Realtor in Another State
Finding a good agent where you live is mostly a social process. You go to an open house, you ask a neighbor, you notice whose sign keeps showing up on your street. None of that is available when the house you want to buy is 2,000 miles away, and you will not set foot in the state until moving day.
So you need a different process. Not a worse one. A different one, built on things you can check from a laptop instead of things you pick up by being there.
I am often the agent on the receiving end of these moves. People relocate to Bellevue and the Eastside for work, for family, or because they finally got the remote job they wanted, and most of the buying process happens before we ever shake hands. I have watched it go smoothly, and I have watched people get handed to whoever answered the phone that Tuesday.
Here is how I would do it: seven ways to build a shortlist, how referral fees actually work, what to verify yourself, the questions to ask on video, and what to read before you sign anything.
Why the Usual Advice Does Not Work From Out of State
Most advice about choosing a Realtor assumes you can get to the market in person. Four of the most common tips stop working the moment you are a few states away.
Attend open houses. You cannot spend a Sunday watching how an agent treats strangers when you are in another time zone.
Drive the neighborhoods. Street view helps, but it will not tell you about the traffic at 5pm, the flight path overhead, or the hill you would climb every winter.
Ask your neighbors. You do not have neighbors there yet. That is the whole problem.
Walk into a brokerage office. You cannot read a room you are not standing in.
These are not bad methods. They are just local methods, and you are not local yet.
What replaces them is evidence you can pull yourself: closed sales records, state license databases, county property records, reference calls, and a video interview that tests how the agent would actually run a purchase you cannot attend.
Seven Ways to Find an Agent in Another State
The best methods produce evidence, not just names. Anyone can hand you a phone number. What you want is a short list where you already know how much each person actually closed in the neighborhood you are targeting.
I have ranked these roughly by how much usable evidence each one gives you.
1. Ask your current agent for a referral
If you already work with an agent where you live, start there. Agents refer clients across state lines constantly, through brokerage networks, relocation desks, and people they have met at conferences or worked with on past moves.
But do not accept the first name. Ask two questions:
"How do you know this person?"
"What have you seen them do that makes you confident about my purchase?"
An agent who has followed that person's transactions, or sent clients to them before and heard back, is giving you real information. An agent pulling a name from a referral network they have never used is giving you a lead. Those are different things, and the next section explains why the difference matters.
2. Search sold listings instead of active listings
Active listings show you who is marketing. Sold listings show you who is closing. This is the most underused method on this list, and it costs you about twenty minutes.
Open Realtor.com or Zillow and enter the exact zip code where you expect to buy.
Change the listing status filter from Active to Sold.
Narrow to the price range and property type you want.
Open each recent sale and look for the agent who represented the buyer, where the portal shows it.
Write down the names that appear more than once.
Call two or three of them directly.
Filter by zip code, not by county. An agent can be busy across all of King County and still have closed nothing in the neighborhood you care about.
Pay attention to buyer-side representation specifically. Listing a home and buying one are different jobs. The agent who listed a property proved they can market it. The agent who represented its buyer proved they can read comps, write an offer that won, and get it through inspection.
3. Use a Realtor directory to fill out the shortlist
The National Association of Realtors runs a public directory at directories.apps.realtor, and Realtor.com has an agent search you can filter by city or zip code. Both are useful for confirming someone is a licensed Realtor and for adding names you missed. If you are not sure that distinction matters, I have covered the difference between a Realtor and a real estate agent separately.
While you are there, note any designations. A few are genuinely relevant to a relocation:
Certified Relocation Professional (CRP): training focused on employee mobility and corporate moves.
Military Relocation Professional (MRP): training focused on PCS orders and military housing timelines.
Accredited Buyer's Representative (ABR): buyer-side representation coursework.
Certified Residential Specialist (CRS): an advanced residential designation.
Treat a designation as supporting evidence. It tells you someone took a class. It does not tell you how many homes they sold on your street last year.
4. Call the biggest brokerage and ask who is on floor duty
Call a large, established brokerage in the destination market and ask for the managing broker or the relocation coordinator. Explain your budget, your target neighborhoods, and your timeline.
You can also ask who is on floor duty that day. Floor duty means an agent is assigned to take incoming calls, so they are available right now and they know what is currently on the market.
Available is not the same as experienced. Use this to get a fast starting point, then run that person through the same verification as everyone else. The upside of a large brokerage is that relocation purchases are routine for their staff, so the inspection coordination and remote paperwork are already a process rather than an improvisation.
5. Compare agent matching services, carefully
Services like HomeLight, Clever, UpNest, and Redfin will introduce you to local agents quickly. If you have no contacts at all in the destination city, that is worth something.
Understand the tradeoff. Some of these services run referral arrangements, some run their own agent networks, and featured placements on the big directories are often paid. That does not make a recommended agent a bad agent. It does mean the recommendation is not neutral.
Ask how the service picked that person, whether the agent pays to participate, and whether you can compare two or three matches side by side.
6. Ask in the destination city's online communities
City subreddits, local Facebook groups, and Nextdoor surface names that never make it into a national directory. Search the city's subreddit for older threads first, then post your own if you need to.
Something like this works well:
"Relocating from out of state, buying in the $700k to $900k range, probably Bellevue or Kirkland. Looking for a buyer's agent who has handled remote purchases. Who have you used recently and what did they do well?"
Weight the answers that describe something specific. A comment explaining how an agent handled a failed inspection is worth more than ten comments posting a name and a phone number.
7. Use investor groups if you are buying an investment property
If this is a rental or an investment purchase rather than a primary residence, local real estate investor associations and BiggerPockets threads are a better source than a general directory. Investors recommend agents based on repeat deals, off-market awareness, and whether the numbers held up.
That network is less useful if you are buying a home to live in. The agent who is excellent on cap rates may not be the one who knows which middle school your kids would be zoned for.
If I were doing this myself: I would ask my current agent for one well-explained referral, then build a second shortlist independently from sold listings in the target zip code. Where those two lists overlap, or where the referral holds up against the sold data, you have your answer.
How Agent Referrals Really Work
A referral is an agreement between two brokerages, and the receiving agent pays it out of their own commission after closing. You are not billed a referral fee.
The conventional fee is around 25% of the receiving agent's commission, and most negotiated fees land somewhere between 20% and 35%. That range is an industry convention, not a rule. No regulator or trade body sets it, the fee is negotiable between the two brokerages, and it can fall outside that range in either direction.
The percentage confuses people, so here is the math. Say the agent on the receiving end earns a $12,000 commission on your purchase. At 25%, $3,000 goes back to the referring brokerage and $9,000 stays, before the receiving agent's own brokerage split and expenses. The $3,000 is a cut of the commission, not a cut of the purchase price.
Why this is usually good for you
A referral comes with built-in accountability. The agent who sent you has a professional relationship and a reputation tied to how this goes. If you have a miserable experience, they hear about it, and they are the one you will call when you eventually sell.
That incentive is real, and it is the main reason a referral from someone who knows you is a better starting point than a cold directory search.
When a referral is the wrong move
Here is the part most articles leave out, and I would rather you hear it from an agent.
Some referrals are not based on judgment. They are based on who participates in a fee-paying network. And an agent who is eager to pay a substantial referral fee may simply be hungry for business, which is not the same as being good at it.
That is not proof of anything. Plenty of excellent agents take referrals. But it means the recommendation has to hold up on its own.
Before you accept one, ask the person referring you:
"Why this specific agent?"
"How many clients have you sent them in the last two years?"
"What kind of buyer or neighborhood are they strongest with?"
"Has anyone you sent them had a problem?"
"Would you use them yourself to buy in that market?"
If the answers are vague, treat the referral as one name on your list rather than a recommendation. Then verify it the same way you would verify a stranger, and interview at least one candidate who came from somewhere else.
One more thing: referral compensation and your own buyer agreement are separate arrangements. Being referred does not change what you negotiate with your new agent, and it should not be used as a reason that something is non-negotiable.
Can a Realtor Work in Multiple States?
An agent can hold licenses in more than one state, but a license in your current state does not let them represent you where the property is. Real estate licensing is handled state by state, and that is the rule that decides who can legally write your offer.
Some agents do carry two licenses, usually around metro areas that straddle a state line. It is less common than people assume, and it is rarely the right thing to optimize for.
Reciprocity and portability are not the same thing
These two terms get used interchangeably and they mean different things.
Reciprocity is a path for an agent licensed in one state to get licensed in another with reduced requirements. Washington offers it to applicants who held an active license in good standing in another state within the previous six months. They submit license history verification and sit only the Washington law portion of the exam rather than the full national exam.
Portability is about what an out-of-state licensee can do without getting a full local license. Rules differ by state, some allow limited commercial activity, and none of that should be assumed to cover ordinary residential buyer representation.
Why it matters less than you think
A license is permission. It is not knowledge.
An agent licensed in both Washington and Oregon is legitimate in both. That tells you nothing about whether they understand Bellevue's condo inventory, how Redmond school boundaries have moved, or what a Medina waterfront property should appraise for.
So the question to ask is not "are you licensed in my state?" It is "how many homes did you close in my target zip code last year?" The license is a yes-or-no gate. Local production is the thing that separates candidates.
How to Verify an Agent You Have Never Met
Verify an out-of-state agent through public records before you rely on their website, their reviews, or the person who referred them. Everything in this section you can do yourself, from your kitchen table, in under an hour.
Here is the five-part check I would run on anyone who made the shortlist.
What to check | Where to check it | Red flag |
License status and type | The destination state's real estate commission or licensing department | Expired, inactive, disciplinary history, or a license type that does not match what they claim to do |
Closings in your target zip code | Sold-listing filters on the portals, plus the agent's own transaction breakdown | Big career numbers, almost nothing recent in your neighborhood |
Third-party reviews | Google, Realtor.com, Zillow, BBB | All reviews from one source, all from years ago, or none from out-of-state buyers |
Errors and omissions insurance | Ask the agent or their managing broker directly | No coverage, vague answers, or confusion about who carries it |
Actual sale prices | County assessor or recorder records | Recorded sales that do not match what the agent claimed |
Run all five. Any one of them can look fine on a bad agent, but it is hard to pass all five without being real.
Check the license at the source
Go to the destination state's licensing agency directly rather than trusting a badge on a brokerage website. A brokerage site is marketing. A regulator's record is evidence.
In Washington, that is the Department of Licensing's License Lookup. It will tell you whether someone is licensed, whether the license is currently active, and when it expires. It does not display disciplinary history, so if you want that, request it from the agency separately as a public record.
Use a volume floor, then narrow it
As a rough screen, I like to see 12 or more closed transactions a year from someone presenting themselves as a full-time agent. That is a benchmark I use, not an industry standard or a legal requirement.
Then narrow it. Twelve closings scattered across a county tell you less than four closings on the streets you are shopping. Ask for the agent's personal numbers rather than their team's combined volume, and ask how many were buyer-side.
Ask about E and O insurance
Errors and omissions insurance covers certain professional liability claims against an agent or brokerage. It is not required everywhere. Roughly a dozen states mandate it, among them Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, and Tennessee. Washington is not one of them, which means an agent here may or may not carry coverage. Ask rather than assume.
Call the references, and ask a better question
Ask for three recent buyer references, ideally people who bought from out of the area. Then call all three.
Do not ask whether they liked the agent. They were handed to you because they liked the agent. Ask this instead:
"What went wrong during your transaction, and how did the agent handle it?"
Something goes sideways in almost every deal. What you are testing is whether this person solves problems or goes quiet during them.
Eleven Questions to Ask on the Video Call
Never hire an out-of-state agent off email alone. Thirty minutes on video tells you how someone explains a decision, whether they listen, and whether they have an actual system for buyers who are not in the room.
Here are the eleven I would ask, in three groups. If your search is pointed at the Eastside specifically, I also keep a longer list of questions to ask a real estate agent when buying in Bellevue that goes deeper on the local side.
Local market questions
1. "How many buyers did you personally represent in my target zip code in the last 12 months?"
You want a number. "I know the whole Eastside" is not a number.
2. "Show me three recent comparable sales and explain how they would shape your offer recommendation."
A good answer covers condition, days on market, and the gap between list and sale price. A weak one is a list of addresses.
3. "Which neighborhoods would you show me first at my budget, and which would you rule out?"
The ruling-out half matters more. An agent who will not tell you where not to look is selling, not advising.
4. "What is changing in that area right now that someone moving from out of state would not notice?"
New construction, a transit project, a school boundary redraw, an assessment. Local knowledge shows up here or it does not exist.
Remote process questions
5. "Walk me through exactly how you run a live video tour for a buyer who cannot attend."
Listen for a process, not a promise to FaceTime you.
6. "Who attends the inspection if I cannot be there, and how will you get the findings to me?"
Ask whether you can join the inspector's wrap-up by phone and how repair priorities get documented.
7. "What response time can I expect across our time zones, especially near an offer or inspection deadline?"
"I'm always available" is not a plan. A plan has hours and a backup contact in it.
8. "Describe a purchase you closed where the buyer never saw the house before closing."
Then ask what the hardest part was and what they did about it.
Representation questions
9. "Will you represent only my interests, and what happens if I want to see a listing from your own brokerage?"
This puts the agency question on the table before it becomes a conflict.
10. "Under what circumstances would you act as a dual agent, and what would that stop you from doing for me?"
Dual agency is prohibited in some states and permitted with written consent in others, with real limits on what the agent can do for you either way.
11. "How many active buyers do you have right now, and who covers if you are unreachable?"
The number alone is not the issue. Capacity and a named backup are.
What a weak answer sounds like
Weak answers are reassuring and specific about nothing: "we do this all the time," "don't worry about that," "we can figure it out when we get there."
Strong answers have numbers, named neighborhoods, a repeatable process, and a clear explanation of who they work for.
What You Are Actually Signing
A buyer representation agreement is negotiable on three terms: how long it lasts, where it applies, and what you pay. Most buyers sign the first version handed to them without knowing any of the three can move.
Since the NAR practice changes that took effect on August 17, 2024, an MLS participant working with a buyer must have a written buyer agreement in place before touring a home. NAR defines a tour to include a live virtual tour given to a buyer who is not physically present. So this applies to you from the first showing even if you never set foot in the state.
It does not mean you sign something to have a conversation. An interview is not a tour, and attending an open house on your own does not trigger it either.
Duration
Agreements commonly run 30, 60, or 90 days, and there is no single national standard. Washington is more specific than most states. Under RCW 18.86.020, a buyer services agreement has to state its term, and for a buyer the default is 60 days unless you agree to something longer.
Ask for a shorter initial term while you are still evaluating each other. A good agent will usually take it, because they expect to perform. An agent pushing for twelve months before you have visited the state is telling you something.
Geographic scope
This one matters far more for a relocating buyer than most people realize.
You start your search in Bellevue. Three weeks in, your budget or your commute math points you to Kirkland, or Redmond, or across the water to Seattle. If you signed an exclusive agreement covering a whole county or the whole state, your flexibility to bring in a specialist for that second market just got complicated.
Ask whether the agreement can be limited to a city, a set of zip codes, a defined search area, or even specific properties. Then write down what happens if your search moves.
Compensation
Buyer-side compensation is negotiated and documented separately now rather than assumed to come from the seller. Your agreement should state the amount or rate, how it is calculated, and what happens if the seller contributes less than that figure.
A seller may agree to cover some or all of it. That is not guaranteed, and the gap is your responsibility if the agreement says it is. Get the scenarios in writing before you make an offer, not after.
Cancellation and holdover clauses
Read these before you sign, not when you want out.
Cancellation: can you end the agreement, in what form, and with how much notice?
Holdover or protection period: can the brokerage still claim compensation if you buy a property they showed you after the agreement ends? Ask which properties it covers and for how long.
Exclusivity: are you free to work with anyone else, in any market?
A first video consultation does not create a buyer agreement by itself, and it does not obligate you to anyone. If someone pushes a contract at you in the first ten minutes or gets annoyed when you want to read it, that is useful information about how the rest of the transaction would go.
How a Remote Purchase Actually Closes
You can buy a house without traveling to the closing, but the details depend on the property, the lender, the settlement provider, and state law. Ask your agent to walk you through the whole sequence before you write an offer, not after.
Here is what that sequence looks like.
Step 1: The live video tour
A good remote tour is a conversation, not a highlight reel.
Ask the agent to show you:
The approach to the house from the car, and the street in both directions
The immediate neighbors and the backyard boundaries
The water heater, electrical panel, furnace, and whatever is visible of the roof
Ceilings and baseboards, where moisture shows up first
Grading and drainage around the foundation
Whatever they personally dislike about the property
That last one is the test. An agent who cannot name a single drawback is not giving you enough to make a six-figure decision from your couch.
If you can get out for one concentrated weekend before you commit, do it. A short trip catches things no camera does.
Step 2: The inspection you will not attend
Hire your own independent inspector. Your agent can coordinate access and explain your contract options, but that is not a substitute for a professional inspection.
Then set the output requirements up front: a detailed written report with photos of every significant finding, safety issues called out separately, and a live phone or video debrief with the inspector afterward.
For older or more expensive homes, consider adding specialist inspections based on the property and the local risks. A sewer scope, a roof inspection, or a pest inspection costs a fraction of what the problem costs.
Do not treat the seller disclosure as a substitute. Disclosure rules and buyer remedies vary by state.
Step 3: Electronic signatures
Most of the purchase agreement, disclosures, and amendments can be signed electronically. That part is routine now.
Lender and recording documents are where it gets uneven. Ask the lender and the settlement provider, early, which documents need a wet signature, a notary, a witness, or a physical original. You want the full signing plan before closing week, not during it.
Step 4: Remote online notarization
Remote online notarization (RON) lets an authorized notary notarize a document for someone who is not physically present, using approved audio-video technology. It is not the same as emailing a signed PDF.
Washington permits remote notarial acts, but the notary has to hold two separate endorsements: an electronic records notary public endorsement and a remote notarial acts endorsement. The notary also has to be physically in Washington when performing the act, though you can be anywhere. Even then, not every transaction qualifies, because lenders, title insurers, and recording offices each add requirements of their own.
Ask early whether your closing supports RON, a mobile notary, a traveling signing agent, or signing in front of a notary where you currently live.
Step 5: Who actually conducts the closing
Some states close through an attorney's office. Others use a title or escrow company. This changes who prepares documents, who holds your money, and who explains the paperwork.
Washington is an escrow state. Transactions here commonly close through a licensed escrow company or a title company's escrow department, and an attorney is not required. Attorneys can act as escrow agents and sometimes do, but that is not the default here.
Do not assume the closing will look like the last one you did in another state. Ask who your settlement provider will be, what the closing costs are, and how ownership gets recorded.
Step 6: Protecting your money
Never wire money using instructions that arrived by email, even when the email appears to come from your agent or the title company.
Relocating buyers are a specific target for wire fraud. You are far away, moving fast, and corresponding with people you have never met in person. Criminals monitor or spoof email threads in real transactions and send altered wiring instructions at exactly the right moment.
Before you wire earnest money or closing funds:
Look up the escrow or title company's phone number yourself, independently of any email.
Call that number and confirm the account name, routing number, and account number out loud.
Treat any change to payment instructions, at any point, as fraud until proven otherwise.
If you suspect a fraudulent transfer has gone out, call your bank and the settlement provider immediately. Hours matter.
A good relocation agent will set this verification habit up with you before the first transfer, not after something goes wrong.
If You Are Selling and Buying at the Same Time
When you are selling in one state and buying in another, the sequence matters as much as the agent. Your current home usually determines your down payment, your financing approval, and your closing date.
Sort out the order before you start making offers.
A sale-contingent offer is generally weaker than one without the contingency, though how much weaker depends on the local market and how the contract is written. In a competitive Eastside market, that gap is wide. In a slower market it narrows.
Before you write an out-of-state offer, settle these:
Do you need the current home to close to fund the purchase?
Is a sale contingency realistic in the destination market, or will it lose every time?
Would a rent-back, a delayed closing, or temporary housing solve the gap?
How do the appraisal, inspection, and financing deadlines line up across the two transactions?
Have you priced out bridge financing with a lender who has actually done one?
Each option has a cost and a risk. There is no free version.
The most useful thing your two agents can do is talk directly to each other about dates: listing date, offer acceptance, contingency removal, financing approval, and the two closings. That coordination is a real argument for the referral route, because a referring agent has a reason to keep both sides talking rather than letting them operate in separate silos.
I would also compare lenders on responsiveness and local closing experience, not just rate. A lender who has never closed in the destination state can add a week you do not have.
If you are preparing your current home for sale, the listing side has its own set of questions to ask a realtor when selling worth running separately. The buyer questions in this article will not cover pricing strategy or marketing plans.
What Changes When You Are Moving to the Seattle Area
Moving to the Seattle area means picking a market, not picking a city. People arriving from out of state tend to treat Seattle, Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, and Medina as roughly interchangeable options on the same map. They are not.
Bellevue alone holds several very different housing situations. Downtown condo towers near Bellevue Square are a different purchase from an established single-family neighborhood like Somerset up on the hill, or Wilburton, or Bridle Trails with its horse trails and larger lots. Prices, competition, and inventory move independently, which is why it is worth comparing Bellevue's neighborhoods before you settle on where to search.
Kirkland shifts fast depending on how close you are to the water. Redmond splits between Downtown Redmond, Education Hill, and the neighborhoods close to the big employers, and the commute math changes meaningfully across a couple of miles.
So when you are evaluating a Seattle-area agent, the county-level answer is not enough. An agent who says they cover all of King County may be perfectly good and still have closed nothing in the three neighborhoods on your list.
Ask how many homes they helped buyers purchase in your specific target areas in the last year. That is the question I would put to any Bellevue real estate agent you are considering, and the same one applies if your search shifts east toward Redmond.
I am not suggesting you find someone who knows every street in western Washington. You want someone who knows the handful of places where you are actually likely to buy.
The Short Version
Find an out-of-state realtor by combining a trusted introduction with evidence you verified yourself. One without the other leaves you guessing.
Start with a referral and ask why that person was chosen. Build a second list from recent sold listings in your target zip code. Check the license at the state source. Interview on video and listen for numbers instead of reassurance. Read the buyer agreement before you sign it, especially the duration and the geography. And confirm every wiring instruction by phone using a number you looked up yourself.
If you are relocating to Bellevue or anywhere on the Eastside, I am glad to talk through your timeline, the neighborhoods worth comparing at your budget, and how I work as a Bellevue realtor with buyers who are not in the state yet. If you want the local version of this process, I have written separately on how to choose the best real estate agent in Bellevue. And if you are moving somewhere I do not serve, I can still help you think through how to evaluate agents in that market, and point you toward someone vetted rather than leaving you with a cold directory.
Call me at (206) 501-8484.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you use a realtor from a different state?
Only if they hold an active license in the state where the property is. Real estate licensing is state by state, so an agent licensed only where you currently live generally cannot represent you in a purchase elsewhere. What they can do is refer you to a licensed agent in that state.
Are there realtors who are licensed in multiple states?
Yes. Some agents hold active licenses in two or more states, most often around markets that cross a state line. Multiple licenses do not guarantee recent experience in every city they can legally work in, so ask about closings in your specific area rather than relying on the license itself.
Who pays the referral fee when one agent refers you to another?
The receiving brokerage pays the referring brokerage out of its commission after closing. The conventional fee is around 25% of the receiving agent's commission, with most landing between 20% and 35%. That is an industry convention rather than a set rate, and the two brokerages negotiate it. Buyers are not billed separately for it, though you should still negotiate your own representation agreement on its own terms.
How do I check if a real estate agent is licensed?
Use the official licensing agency in the state where you are buying, not a badge on the agent's website. Search by name or license number and confirm the status, the license type, and the expiration date. In Washington, that is the Department of Licensing's License Lookup. It will not show disciplinary history, so request that from the agency separately if you want it.
Is it better to use an agent matching service or an online directory?
Use both for discovery and neither for the final decision. A matching service produces candidates fast but its recommendations may be shaped by commercial arrangements, and directory placements are often paid. Verify whichever names you get through sold-listing history, the state license record, and a video interview.
Can you buy a house without ever seeing it in person?
Yes. Buyers do it regularly using live video tours, independent inspections, electronic signatures, and remote or mail-away closing arrangements. Whether your transaction can close without travel depends on state law, your lender, and the settlement provider, so confirm the signing plan early. A single in-person visit before you commit is still worth arranging if you can.
Matthew Chapman
I come from a family with over 30 years of experience in real estate and previously worked in the non-profit sector. Seeing how limited funding prevented impactful ideas from becoming reality inspired my purpose-driven approach to real estate, helping clients achieve their goals while creating meaningful community impact.
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