When choosing a real estate agent, it pays to meet at least two or three top performers and interview them to identify which agent is likely to achieve the best result. Knowing what questions to ask a real estate agent when selling will make a big difference to your chances of choosing the best prospect. This guide is intended to help you develop an understanding of how to choose a real estate agent and provide you with a ‘script’ you can use to interview potential agents.
Learning how to interview a real estate agent can be daunting, especially if it’s your first time – so we’ve put together a list of questions to make it easier. Use the following questions to help evaluate which real estate agent is the best choice to sell your home.
Questions to ask a real estate agent: local knowledge and local expertise
- What properties have you marketed in my area in the last 6 months? What did they sell for and why?
- Who are the active buyers in my area in the last few months?
- How many of your listings in the past 6 months were successfully sold?
- What is the median days-on-market in my area at the moment?
- For how many days were your recent listings on the market before selling?
Questions to ask a real estate agent: assessing experience
- How long have you been selling real estate?
- How many properties have you sold?
Questions to assess their appraisal process
- What approach do you take when preparing an appraisal?
- How often do you sell for less than your appraised value?
- How often do you sell for more than your appraised value?
- What properties did you select when looking at comparable sales? How is my property different?
What to ask a real estate agent to evaluate their proposed sales strategy
- How will you achieve a top price for my property?
- How will you promote my property to existing buyers in your database? How big is this audience?
- How will you describe my property to potential buyers? What are it’s best features?
- What advertising do you recommend?
- What is the profile of the likely buyer for my property?
- How do you follow up with buyers after they have viewed the property?
- How will you generate a sense of competition among buyers?
- What method of sale do you recommend?
- How should I prepare the property for sale?
- How should I present the property during the marketing process? Is home staging worthwhile?
- What negotiation techniques do you use when working with buyers?
Bonus questions to ask previous clients
Ask to speak with a previous client or two and get their feedback directly. Most top agents should have no trouble finding two or three recent clients that are happy to provide a reference.
- How was your experience working with the agent?
- How likely are you to recommend the agent? Have you recommended their services to any friends or family already?
- Was your initial appraisal accurate?
- Were you happy with the ultimate sale price?
- Was the agent responsive and did they provide regular updates?
This list of questions to ask when choosing a real estate agent is a guide – we encourage you to develop your own questions to add to this list based on your individual priorities as a seller.