Questions to ask the real estate agent.

Question 1. Do you have any extra fees if my property doesn't sell ?

The sale may not goes as planned.

If this happens and you have a change of plans at a latter date or you decide to change agents, protect your self by finding out if there are any charges from the agent if the property has not sold.

A lot of agents have advertising and marketing charges which are on top of selling commissions and these are chargeable regardless of whether the property is sold or not

Be aware if this is the case with your agent.

Question 2. How many properties have you sold in my suburb ?

Although enthusiasm is probably more important in sales than experience, you do want to employ a real estate agent who has reasonable track record in your neighborhood. Providing they can report that they have been active with a couple of recently negotiated sales in your suburb, is probably sufficient.

This may even give you a opportunity to speak to one or two of their past clients, which is a great way to get a true insight into the agents ability, you can do this if you know which properties that they have sold.

Question 3. What is the average time the agency takes to sell a property ?

This is the type of information any decent real estate agent will probably offer to you anyway, but if they don't tell you ask the question, and make a note of the answer. Follow the question up with "Why does it take that long ?" this is a little bit more probing and the type of question you want to fire at the agent, remembering this is probably more than a $10,000 fee you are going to be paying, you want to know your agent has all the answers particularly when they are dealing with potential buyers for your property.

Question 4. Are your selling commissions negotiable ?

Now we are talking their language, I would be probably more impressed if the agent answered that they don't negotiate on their fee on initial questioning because what you are really looking for in a good real estate agent is someone who knows how to negotiate, and if the agent is prepared to quickly drop their own pay/fee just because you asked it is a fair guess that they will probably also quickly drop your selling price when asked by potential buyers.

Most agents will probably offer you some type other type of incentive to get the business of selling your property so definitely ask the question the answer you get and how it is handled will give you a terrific insight into what type of negotiator your potential agent is.

Question 5. How long does the listing agreement go for ?

This too should be negotiable, most agents will want a listing agreement for between 2 - 3 months, I would advise any potential sellers not to list for any longer than this and to be fair a good agent will be investing a lot of time and effort into selling your property and this amount of time is a reasonable time bracket for them to work in, but i would not recommend you list for any longer than 3 months.

Some agents will insist to you that they have a buyer for your property and will only need to list it for one or two weeks to sell it, be very skeptical of this type of approach as it could do damage to the value of your property if you list with one agent for a couple of weeks and then change to another agent.

Question 6. As an agent do you recommend auction or private treaty sales ?

A good real of thumb for suitable auction properties are properties that are unique and hard to accurately assess for market value also properties that there will be extremely high demand for and you are almost guaranteed there will be more than one party who would be interested in bidding for, may be suitable for auction.

Also if the market is extremely buoyant it may be appropriate to consider whether or not to put your property on the market by auction.

Having said that in most cases an auction increases the margin for error, and it puts an extra amount of pressure and stress on everybody who is to be involved in the transaction.

An auction will bring the marketing and advertising to an end day and will possibly deliver a result because of this deadline, but this is also what puts the pressure on the potential buyers, you the seller, and the agent and their agency.

If auctions are popular in your area it may make it more attractive for you, but if you prefer to avoid pressure and stress consider seriously if an auction campaign is right for you.

Question 7. What is your offices average sale price ?

This is a very important point.

You want to know that the real estate agent is dealing with buyers for property in your price bracket!