Property Listing Advice: Questions to Ask a Prospective Estate Agent

When it comes to selling a property, there are several things you need to take into account as a seller – from the listing price to the marketing campaign, the way you want to handle viewings and potential offers, and your ideal timeline in terms of accepting an offer and exchanging.

Working with an external estate agent brings with it a host of benefits, including the ability to outsource the general admin of organising your listing and fielding calls, enquiries, and offers. But with so many East London estate agents competing for the same business, how do you know you’re working with the very best in the business?

In this blog, the team from the Halls Property Group share their tips on identifying the best estate agents to work with, with a series of important and often underrated questions.

How do you conduct viewings, and do you offer accompanied viewings?

With online images designed to entice prospective buyers into booking a viewing and taking the time to visit a property, it is the viewing itself which presents the overall first impression of whether they see themselves building a home in that property.

Knowing how an estate agent will conduct the viewing is crucial to establishing whether they are the right fit for your property – with everything from virtual viewing availability to accompanied home tours helping to seal the deal as far as properties in East London are concerned. While accompanied tours allow the estate agent to get a feel for the prospective buyers reaction and let them answer as many questions as viewers have, online tours expand the accessibility of a property for sale and add an extra step to draw in more interested buyers.

How are your fees structured?

This is a question which is often overlooked, as estate agents present a basic fee structure on their website with no indication of variation or hidden costs. The security of knowing that a fee is straightforward and accurate with no hidden costs is crucial to sellers and can have a huge impact on not only the sale price of their property but their budget for their own new home. As such, asking this question early on is key to establishing whether an estate agent is a right fit for you.

How do you market homes?

It’s no longer enough to display properties for sale in a shop window or on a website – estate agents need to be proactively marketing properties and getting them in front of those who can be considered genuine prospective buyers. That’s why understanding your estate agents’ approach to marketing can play a big part in whether you choose to partner with them – with social media, paid advertising, local community groups, and direct networking all major players in the property marketing sphere today.

Here at the Halls Property Group, we work with sellers and buyers as well as landlords and tenants, delivering an end-to-end service, which is both transparent in terms of fee structures, and successful in terms of sales potential. For more information on how we work with sellers, get in touch today.

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Looking to sell?

If you want to sell your property in East London or any of the surrounding areas we cover, we are the agency for you. We use a wide range of resources to effectively market homes, and we’ll do everything that we can to secure you the quick, profitable sale that you are looking for.

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