If you are selling in Glen Allen, the search you probably ran was “best realtor in Glen Allen VA”, and what you got back was a set of pages ranking agents who all happen to work at the company that published the page. That is not research. This is an attempt at something more useful: who is genuinely worth an hour of your time, and what to ask them.
The criteria this list uses
Four things, chosen because they are checkable and because they change your outcome:
- Does the firm publish anything verifiable about itself? Founding date, ownership, office locations, service lines. A firm that publishes nothing is telling you something.
- Is there a physical office within reach of Glen Allen? It matters less than people think for marketing and more than people think for sign installs, lockbox problems and inspection attendance.
- What is bundled? In-house mortgage, title, insurance and property management are conveniences with a trade-off: affiliated-business relationships need disclosing and you should still shop them.
- Who actually does the work? The only question that consistently predicts whether a seller is happy six months later.
What this list deliberately does not use: transaction counts pulled from portals, star ratings, or any “top producer” label a firm has given itself. Transaction count is not quality, and an unsourced number about another brokerage is exactly the kind of statement the NAR Code of Ethics addresses in Article 15.
Four firms worth an interview, listed alphabetically
Joyner Fine Properties
Incorporated in 1973 by Crawley F. Joyner III as Joyner & Company, REALTORS, renamed Joyner Fine Properties in 2003, and acquired by Virginia Credit Union in 2019 while continuing to operate independently under its own brand. The firm states it has over 180 associates and five Richmond offices, with residential sales and leasing, relocation, commercial and property management under one roof. Headquarters is on West Broad Street, which puts it a short drive down Broad from Glen Allen. All of that is from the Joyner Fine Properties About page. What they do not publish: any transaction or dollar-volume figure, for Richmond or otherwise. Interview them if you want an established local firm with relocation and property-management capability in house.
Long & Foster
The largest network on this list by a wide margin. Their About page states $20 billion in real estate sold in 2025, 30,000 transactions completed in 2025, and more than 6,000 agents and staff, alongside relationships with Forbes Global Properties, Luxury Portfolio International and Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, and an “all-inclusive” model bundling mortgage, inspection, title, insurance, moving, property management and home warranty. Read those numbers carefully: they cover a network running from Raleigh to Philadelphia, not Henrico County and certainly not Glen Allen. A company-wide figure tells you the brand is large. It tells you nothing about who will list your house. Interview them if you are relocating out of the region and want the referral network, or you want everything under one roof.
Mission Realty (us)
A Richmond team with Real Broker LLC, offices at 3701 Cox Road in western Henrico, roughly ten minutes from most of Glen Allen. We publish the full team with direct contact for each agent, client outcomes, and a blog that carries stamped, sourced market data rather than adjectives. Held to the same standard as everyone else: we do not publish a Glen Allen closed-volume figure, and we are not going to invent one for this post. Ask us in an interview and we will show you our Henrico closings for the period you care about, with addresses. Interview us if you want an agent who will put the comparables and the pricing logic in front of you in writing.
Shaheen, Ruth, Martin & Fonville Real Estate
Founded in 2017 by four managing brokers, Scott Shaheen, Scott Ruth, John Martin and Mahood Fonville, with a stated aim of returning to a local brokerage model. Their site lists a flagship office at 420 N Ridge Road, a Grove Avenue office in the Near West End, a Bon Air office, and further offices in Williamsburg and Irvington, plus affiliated title and mortgage. They state over 11,165 clients served. All from the SRMF About page and Our Offices page. A note on their sales figure: the dollar-volume number on their homepage is an animated counter that does not render a value to a plain page read, and it is stated for the firm over eight years across all its markets rather than for Richmond in a year. Interview them if you want an owner-operated local firm with deep Near West End and river-corridor experience.
Interview us alongside the other three
That is the whole ask. Book an hour, put the same questions to all of them, and pick on the answers. We will bring the closed comparables your number rests on, the marketing plan in writing, and a straight answer about who attends your inspection. Start with the agents who cover Glen Allen, read what our sellers actually said, and if you want a starting number first, our home valuation is free and comes with the comparables attached.
Who is not on this list, and why
Three Richmond firms we wanted to include are not here for one reason only: we could not read their published material. Napier REALTORS ERA did not load for us at all. One South Realty and The Steele Group Sotheby’s International Realty blocked or would not render for automated retrieval. We do not describe a firm we have not read, and we will not fill the gap with a portal number, so they are simply absent. That is a limitation of this post, not a judgement on those firms, and any of them may be excellent.
Whoever you shortlist, verify the individual agent, not just the brand, using the DPOR license lookup. Virginia REALTORS is the state association and a reasonable place to check what a designation actually means.
Segment the decision by what you are actually selling
Glen Allen is not one market and the right interview list is different for each slice of it.
| What you are selling | What matters most |
|---|---|
| A $400,000 to $500,000 ranch or split-level on an older street | Pricing discipline and speed. At Henrico’s current pace this is the most competitive band in the county. Ask about pre-list repairs and photography turnaround. |
| A $600,000 to $850,000 colonial in Twin Hickory or similar | Buyer pool management and school-zone accuracy. Ask how they handle multiple offers and what they do about the attendance line question. |
| A $1M+ custom home in Wyndham or backing the golf course | Reach beyond the local MLS, and association and covenant fluency. Ask who has actually closed in the community in the past year. |
| Anything near Innsbrook or the Short Pump corridor | Showing logistics around commuter traffic. It sounds trivial and it decides how many weekday showings you get. |
What the Henrico market is doing while you decide
Closed single-family sales, August 2026
| Area | Median sold price | Year over year | Days on market | Months of supply |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Henrico County | $425,000 | up 7.9% | 18 | 1.6 |
| Richmond Metro | $450,000 | up 3.7% | 22 | 1.8 |
| Entire CVR MLS | $430,000 | up 5.0% | 28 | 2.4 |
| Median price per square foot | [DATA NEEDED: median price per square foot, August 2026, by area] | |||
Closed single-family sales, August 2026, from Central Virginia Regional MLS, published in the Richmond Association of REALTORS housing reports, current as of 10 September 2026. These are county-wide figures, not Glen Allen figures. Glen Allen spans several price tiers and does not trade at the county median.
Eighteen days and 1.6 months of supply is the fastest county market we cover. That has a practical consequence for this decision: in a market this tight, the difference between a competent agent and an excellent one shows up in the price achieved and in how cleanly the contract holds together, not in how long it takes to find a buyer. Interview accordingly. If you want to see what has actually closed, our recently sold properties page is a starting point and the full search covers everything currently listed.
The six questions to ask all three or four
- Show me the three closed comparables your suggested price rests on, and walk me through the adjustments.
- Who attends the inspection, and who negotiates the repair request?
- Who answers the phone when something breaks at 8:30 on a Thursday night, and what is their name?
- What is your listing-side fee, what does it include, and what is your position on buyer-agent compensation?
- How many homes have you personally closed in Henrico in the last twelve months, and can I see the addresses?
- What would you change about my house before we photograph it, and what would you leave alone?
Ask all of them the same six. The gap between the answers is the actual decision. For the broader metro version of this exercise, see our county-by-county agent comparison, and for the neighboring market, the Short Pump edition. If you are still deciding whether to list with anyone at all, we answered that separately.
Facts about other firms in this post were taken from those firms’ own public websites on 16 September 2026 and are linked above. Nothing here is sourced from a national search portal. If we have got something wrong about your firm, tell us and we will correct it on this page.
Questions sellers ask us about choosing an agent
Is this list objective?
No list published by a brokerage is fully objective, which is why the disclosure sits in the first paragraph rather than the footer. Mission Realty is one of the four firms named. The ordering is alphabetical, the criteria are stated, and every competitor fact is sourced to that firm’s own website so you can check it.
Why are there no star ratings or review counts?
Because the review counts and agent rankings people usually quote come from national search portals, and we will not cite them. Their terms restrict reuse, republishing a compiled ranking raises questions we do not need to answer, and it sends authority to a competitor. If a number is not published by the firm itself or awarded by a named body, it is not in here.
How many agents should I interview?
Three is the usual advice and it holds up. One gives you nothing to compare, two tends to become a coin toss on personality, and beyond four the process becomes its own project. Interview three, ask all of them the same questions, and compare the answers rather than the brochures.
Does a bigger brokerage sell my house faster?
There is no evidence that brand size shortens days on market for an ordinary suburban listing. What size buys you is depth of back-office support, in-house mortgage and title, and relocation referral networks. What it can cost you is that the person who answers the phone may not be the person whose name is on the sign.
What commission should I expect to pay in Henrico?
Commission is negotiable by law and always has been, and since the 2024 changes to how buyer-agent compensation is handled it is negotiated separately for each side. Ask every firm you interview to put their listing-side fee, what it includes, and their position on buyer-agent compensation in writing before you sign.
How do I check that an agent is actually licensed?
Use the Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation license lookup. It takes about a minute and it will also show you the license status and the firm the agent is affiliated with.
What is the single most useful interview question?
“Who will actually be at the inspection, and who negotiates the repair request?” On a large team those are frequently two different people, and neither may be the person sitting in front of you. The answer tells you more about your experience than any production figure.
Should I pick the agent who suggests the highest price?
No, and it is the most expensive mistake sellers make in Henrico. Ask every agent to show you the three closed comparables their number rests on and to explain the adjustments. An agent who cannot defend the number with comparables is buying your listing, not pricing it.
Does Glen Allen need a Glen Allen specialist?
Not necessarily, but it does need someone who can tell you which side of a school attendance line your street is on, how Innsbrook commuting traffic affects showing times, and how your section prices against Twin Hickory and Wyndham. Ask the question and see whether the answer is specific.
What if I want to interview a firm that is not on this list?
Do. This list is four firms we could research from their own published material as of September 2026, not the complete set of good agents in Henrico. Several Richmond firms were left out purely because their websites did not load for us, which is noted in the post.
Put us on the list, and then make us earn it
Interview us alongside the others. Same hour, same questions, and we will bring the comparables in writing. Meet the team, read our success stories, or start with a free home valuation that comes with the comps attached. If you would rather talk through the selling process first, start here.
