The guide you
actually needed.
For thousands of years, the North Star gave travelers one thing they could count on: a fixed point to steer by. That's the idea behind The North Star Realtors: a boutique brokerage built right here in West Hartford for people navigating one of Connecticut's tightest markets.
Greater Hartford moves fast. Homes go pending in under a week and sell over asking with multiple offers. That pace rewards buyers who are prepared and well-guided, and it punishes those who are guessing. We exist to make sure you're never the one guessing.
We pair old-fashioned, sit-beside-you service with modern tools, including our own AI assistant, Polaris, so you get answers fast, see the full picture, and move with confidence. No jargon. No pressure. Just a clear path forward.
Travis Bish
Owner and Broker, The North Star Realtors
Travis has been licensed in Connecticut real estate since 2015. He worked at another brokerage first, then opened The North Star Realtors in West Hartford in 2019, and he still works with clients directly. He holds the Connecticut broker license the firm operates under, REB.0792462, which anyone can look up on the state’s license portal. He is a REALTOR®, meaning a member of the National Association of REALTORS® and bound by its code of ethics, and he supervises the small team of agents here.
Boutique isn't a marketing word in this case. It's a small team on purpose, so the person who answers your first question is the same person sitting with you at the closing table.
Clients tend to say the same two things about working with him: he explains what's actually happening, and he doesn't push. Their words are on the home page if you'd like to read them.
If you're trying to figure out whether this is the right moment to buy or sell, ask. The first conversation is free and nothing gets signed.
What working with us actually looks like
The first call, the middle, and who you end up sitting next to.
Most people reach out before they feel ready. That is the right time. The first conversation is free, nothing gets signed, and the point of it is to find out where you actually stand. If you are buying, that means talking about money first, because the expensive mistake is deciding on your own that you do not qualify for help you have never looked up.
After that the order is pre-approval, then showings, then an offer written against what a house is worth rather than what it is listed at. Buyer representation goes in writing before we tour a home together, and what the agent gets paid is negotiable and named in that agreement. We can show you any home on the MLS, whoever has it listed. The buying page walks through the whole sequence.
For homeowners it starts with the address. You get an opinion of value put together by hand, not an instant number out of a form, and there is nothing attached to it. If your listing already expired somewhere else, that is the conversation we most want to have, and the first question is always why it did not sell. What we do for sellers is written out in full.
We work in West Hartford, Farmington, Avon, Simsbury, Glastonbury, Bloomfield, and Newington. Those seven are where most of our work happens, not a fence around it. We take homes anywhere in Hartford County, and we have gone further when a client asked us to. There is a short guide to all seven towns and a longer one to the neighborhoods, the three West Hartford areas we are asked about most, plus Hartford's West End just across the line. The team is small on purpose, so the person who picks up your first call is the person sitting at the closing table.
Between conversations there is Polaris, the assistant built into this site. It answers questions about the towns, the market, and the process at whatever hour you happen to be awake. When you would rather have a person, the number is (860) 773-4578.
How to choose a real estate agent in West Hartford
Four questions worth asking every agent you talk to, including us.
Most people sit down with two or three agents before they pick one, and nobody hands them a list of what to compare. Commission is the easy thing to ask about and it tells you the least. These are the four questions worth asking, and we would rather you asked them of everyone, us included.
How did you arrive at that number? A price that lands in the first ten minutes and came off a website is a guess. A price built from the last few sales on the street, and from what makes this house different from those, is work. You can hear the difference. The same test works on the buying side when an agent tells you what to offer. What we do for sellers goes through it properly.
What goes in writing, and when? Ask when the paperwork shows up and what is in it. With us, buyer representation goes in writing before we tour a home together, what we get paid is negotiable and named in it, and you will have read it before we open a door. Nobody is required to be represented at all. On the selling side, commission in Connecticut is negotiable too, and there is no standard rate. Anyone quoting you one is describing their own habit rather than a rule. The buying page shows where that lands in the sequence.
Who actually does the work? At a larger brokerage, the agent who wins the listing and the agent who runs the showings are often two different people. That is not wrong. It is just worth knowing before you sign rather than in week three. Here the team is small on purpose, so the person who picks up your first call is the person sitting at the closing table.
What happens when it goes sideways? Something will. Travis has never had a transaction go perfectly smoothly on either side, and he will say so in the first conversation rather than the fourth. An agent who describes the process as clean is describing a brochure.
One more, and it costs about a minute. Connecticut publishes every real estate license in the state, searchable by name, at the state eLicense lookup. Look up anyone you are considering. Travis is in there too.
If you want to run those four questions past us, get in touch or call (860) 773-4578. Nothing gets signed on a first conversation.