10 Essential Questions to Ask When Choosing an Estate Agent

Choosing which estate agent to instruct is one of the most consequential decisions you'll make during the sale of your home. Get it right and you'll achieve the best possible price in a reasonable timeframe with minimal stress. Get it wrong and you could lose tens of thousands of pounds, experience months of frustration, or end up reducing your price just to get a deal done.

Yet most sellers make this decision based on little more than which agent gave them the highest valuation or had the nicest office. That's a mistake.

Here are ten questions worth asking any agent before you sign on the dotted line — and what the answers should tell you.

1. What have you actually sold recently in my area — and what did those properties achieve?

This is the most important question on the list, and you should push for specifics. Any agent can claim local expertise; very few can back it up with a clear and honest track record of recent comparable sales on your street or in your immediate neighbourhood.

Ask for the addresses. Look them up on Rightmove or the Land Registry if you want to verify. What you're trying to establish is whether this agent genuinely knows your micro-market — the specific streets, the buyer profile, the price per square foot — or whether they're a generalist covering a wide patch with superficial knowledge of each part of it.

2. How did your last ten sales compare to their asking price?

This is the question that cuts through over-valuation. The practice of 'buying the instruction' — where an agent deliberately inflates their valuation to win the business, then recommends price reductions after a few weeks on the market — is unfortunately common.

Asking for a concrete figure forces transparency. A good agent operating in a realistic market should be achieving sales within 2–5% of asking price on average. Also ask about time on market. An agent who consistently sells at 98% of asking price in three weeks tells a very different story to one achieving 94% after three months.

3. Who will actually be handling the sale day-to-day?

In many estate agencies — particularly larger chains — the person who does the valuation and wins your instruction is not the person who will be managing your sale. Your file may be handed to a junior negotiator, a call centre team, or a different branch entirely.

Ask directly: who will be my main point of contact? Will I always be able to speak to the same person? Who conducts the viewings, and how much do they know about my property? A motivated, knowledgeable negotiator who knows your home well will consistently outperform a disengaged junior managing 50 other listings simultaneously.

4. How do you qualify potential buyers?

Not all viewings are worth the same. An unqualified buyer who hasn't spoken to a mortgage broker and is 'just having a look' consumes your time and creates false hope. Ask the agent how they qualify enquiries before booking viewings. Do they speak to every enquiry on the phone? Do they verify mortgage arrangements?

An agent who books every online enquiry as a viewing without any qualification process is prioritising activity over results. That's not in your interest.

5. What does your fee actually cover — and what's excluded?

Some agents offer headline rates that exclude critical services — professional photography, floor plans, premium Rightmove listings, accompanied viewings — that are then charged as extras. Ask for a written breakdown of exactly what's included. A slightly higher headline fee that includes all of these things will typically deliver a better outcome than a low fee that requires extras for everything that matters.

6. How will you market my property beyond Rightmove?

Rightmove is essential, but it's not sufficient. The best agents have a proactive approach — contacting registered applicants waiting for a property like yours, running targeted social media campaigns, and utilising their own email database. Ask the agent to walk you through their marketing process step by step. Agents who rely entirely on Rightmove to do the work for them tend to be reactive rather than proactive. In a competitive market, proactive wins.

7. What's your average time to sell, and what's your fall-through rate?

Time to sell is a metric most agents will share readily. Fall-through rate — the percentage of sales that are agreed but then collapse before completion — is the one many prefer not to discuss. The industry average is around 30%, but this varies enormously between agents. A high fall-through rate costs you time, money and emotional energy, and is one of the most underappreciated factors in choosing an agent.

8. How do you handle the period between offer and completion?

Most agents focus their energy on getting an offer agreed and then largely step back, leaving solicitors to manage the process. This is where a significant proportion of deals fall apart. Ask specifically: do you have a dedicated sales progression team? How often will you update me on progress? What do you do when a chain starts to look fragile? The difference between an agent who manages this process well and one who doesn't can be the difference between a sale that completes and one that doesn't.

9. Are you a member of a regulated redress scheme?

All estate agents in England are legally required to be registered with either The Property Ombudsman or the Property Redress Scheme. Ask to see evidence of membership. Also check whether they are NAEA Propertymark members, which indicates adherence to professional standards above the legal minimum. How an agent responds to questions about accountability tells you something important about how they operate.

10. Why should I choose you over a competitor?

End the conversation with this question and watch what happens. A confident, knowledgeable agent will give you a clear, specific and compelling answer — talking about their results, their people, their local knowledge, and their process with specifics you can verify. An agent who struggles, or who responds by criticising competitors rather than articulating their own value, is giving you important information.

One Final Thought

The highest valuation is almost never the best reason to choose an agent. The most important things — local knowledge, qualified buyers, proactive marketing, strong fall-through prevention, and honest communication — don't show up in a headline valuation figure. They show up in results.

Ask the questions. Listen carefully to the answers. And choose the agent who earns your trust, not just your signature.

At Imza Homes, we welcome every one of these questions — and we have straight answers to all of them. If you're thinking of selling your Liverpool home, start with a free valuation at imzahomes.com/how-much-is-my-home-worth or visit imzahomes.com to find out more about how we work.

Imza Homes — Estate & Letting Agents across Liverpool, Wirral & Manchester.