Questions Every Seller Should Ask—But Most Don’t
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably decided it’s time to sell your home. If you’re interviewing more than one real estate agent, you’re already taking an important step toward making a good decision.
The challenge is knowing what questions to ask.
Most agents are capable of putting a sign in the yard, placing a listing in the MLS, hosting open houses, and guiding a transaction through escrow. Yet not all agents deliver the same level of service, marketing, communication, negotiation, or results.
Real estate is a profession where experience, attention to detail, local market knowledge, and execution can vary dramatically from one agent to another. Those differences often have a direct impact on the price a home sells for, the terms negotiated, and the overall experience of the seller.
Many consumers assume they’re hiring a company when they hire a REALTOR®. In reality, they’re usually hiring an individual professional. While brokerages provide resources and support, the person you choose will be responsible for advising you, preparing your home for market, negotiating on your behalf, and managing one of your largest financial assets.
Most sellers arrive at a listing appointment prepared to ask a handful of standard questions:
- How long have you been in business?
- What cities do you specialize in?
- Do you primarily represent buyers or sellers?
- Can you provide references?
- How much do you charge?
- What do you think my home is worth?
These are all reasonable questions, but they rarely tell the whole story.
The most revealing questions are often the ones agents aren’t expecting—the questions that uncover how they think, how they market, how they negotiate, and how involved they will be in the sale of your home.
Best Questions to Ask When Interviewing a Real Estate Agent
Choosing the right real estate agent is one of the most important decisions you’ll make when selling your home.
These questions are designed to help you understand how each agent actually conducts business—not simply what they promise to do. Ask the same questions of every agent, pay attention to the specifics of their answers, and request examples whenever possible.
Experience, Qualifications & Track Record
- Tell us about your real estate career, including when you started and how your business has evolved.
- How have different real estate market conditions affected the way you represent sellers? How would you characterize today’s market, and why?
- What real estate licenses and professional designations do you hold, and what responsibilities do they authorize you to perform?
- Describe the geographic areas where you conduct most of your business and how that distribution has changed over time.
- Walk us through your listing and sales history over the past ten years. What do your results show about your average days on market, sale price relative to asking price, and the neighborhoods and property types you’ve represented?
- How would you recommend that we independently evaluate your past clients’ experiences? We’d particularly like to understand the experiences of your three most recent sellers.
- What should we know about your professional disciplinary history, including any actions or complaints involving the Department of Real Estate or a REALTOR® association?
Property Preparation & Marketing
- Walk us through the marketing materials you developed for your three most recent listings. What went into creating them, and how did you use them?
- How do buyers typically discover the homes you represent, and what evidence informs your understanding of those sources?
- Explain your process for determining when a property should first be introduced to the MLS.
- What differences have you observed in listing performance based on the day a home enters the market? What data supports your conclusions?
- Describe how you incorporate brokers’ tours into your marketing strategy.
- Walk us through how your business operates, including everyone involved in preparing, marketing, showing, negotiating, and closing a listing. What responsibilities does each person have?
- Explain your approach to public open houses, including when you recommend them and how you evaluate their effectiveness.
- How are your open houses staffed, and what responsibilities do the people conducting them have?
- What happens when a prospective buyer calls the telephone number displayed on your property’s for-sale sign? Walk us through the process from the initial call to the follow-up.
- Explain how you coordinate property inspections before a home is offered for sale, including who participates and how the findings are handled.
Communication, Exposure & Accountability
- Describe how you monitor property showings and how that information is communicated to your sellers.
- How do you measure online buyer interest in your listings, and what information do you share with your sellers?
- Walk us through examples of your current marketing campaigns for actual properties. What was done, where was it distributed, and how did you measure the results?
- Explain how your listings are distributed across real estate websites and other digital platforms. How do you verify their accuracy and visibility?
- How do you track competing listings, pending sales, and market changes while representing a seller? How does that information influence your recommendations?
Strategy, Offers & Negotiation
- Describe your process for evaluating a listing’s performance after it enters the market. What indicators do you watch, and how do they influence your next steps?
- Walk us through your process for receiving, evaluating, and presenting purchase offers to your sellers.
- Describe your approach to negotiating a purchase agreement. What do you consider most important beyond the purchase price?
- Tell us about a recent transaction in which your negotiating strategy materially improved the outcome for your seller. What was the situation, what actions did you take, and what was the result?
A Final Suggestion
Don’t judge an agent solely by how confidently they answer these questions. Ask for documentation, examples, and measurable results. An experienced, knowledgeable agent should be able to explain not just what they do, but why they do it—and demonstrate how their approach has benefited past clients.
Selecting an Agent
FAQ
Q. Is the number of transactions (homes sold) an important metric I should use to select an agent?
A. Larger teams typically put all their sales under the lead agent, distorting the true number of sales per agent.
Q. What is a good metric for selecting an agent?
A. The best metric is experience, and how they perform—what percentage of list price to sale price they achieve, how many days their homes are on the market, and how many of their listings get canceled because they can’t sell.
Q. What Are the Best Questions to Ask a Real Estate Agent During an Interview?
A. Start by asking, “What do you do differently from your competition?” Then listen.
Don’t interview agents to compare commissions. Interview them to compare judgment.
Avoid making commission your first question. Instead, focus on the agent’s experience, strategy, communication, and the value they bring. Once you understand how they can help you, you’ll be in a better position to evaluate the overall cost.
If you’ve interviewed other agents, avoid asking whether they’ll do something another agent suggested. The answer will almost always be “yes.” Instead, let each agent explain their own approach without prompting.
Remember, the purpose of the interview is to determine whether the agent has the knowledge, judgment, and commitment to help you make good decisions throughout the transaction—not simply to earn your business.
Q. Should I hire the agents with the most reviews?
A. No. Since the emergence of online reviews, many real estate professionals have focused on accumulating as many reviews as possible. However, the number of reviews is often less important than their quality, authenticity, and substance. In some cases, agents even hire third-party services to help generate false reviews, making it important to look beyond the numbers and focus on what past clients are actually saying.
Q. What Is Information Asymmetry and Why Does It Matter?
A. Information asymmetry occurs when one party in a transaction has more knowledge than the other. In real estate, this can happen because agents, buyers, sellers, inspectors, or contractors often possess information that others do not.
This imbalance can create two potential risks:
Adverse Selection – Before an agreement is reached, someone with greater knowledge may withhold information or guide you toward decisions that benefit them more than you.
Moral Hazard – After an agreement is in place, someone may act differently because they know you’re now committed and have fewer options.
One of the primary reasons to hire an experienced real estate professional is to help reduce information asymmetry. Our role is to educate you, explain your options, identify potential risks, and help ensure you have the information needed to make informed decisions—not decisions based on incomplete information.