Questions to Ask a Realtor When Selling Your Home
Choosing a listing agent is about more than finding someone who can put your home in the MLS. The right questions can help you figure out whether an agent actually has the experience, marketing strategy, communication style, and local knowledge to represent your interests well, not just sound good in an interview.
I learned this firsthand on a recent listing appointment. The minute I sat down, the seller started rapid firing questions at me, straight out of the “questions to ask a Realtor when selling your home” playbook. Some of the questions were genuinely good. Some were bad. Some were pretty meaningless. Below, I’ve grouped the questions worth asking into five categories: communication, experience, pricing, marketing, and costs, along with a few extras that matter less than sellers think.
Questions About Communication and Availability
What Hours Do You Work?
This is an excellent question, but it’s rarely asked because most people assume Realtors work around the clock. Most don’t. Beyond just asking about their hours, ask who handles their business when they’re unavailable.
Even if a Realtor doesn’t have a vacation planned during your listing period, life happens. Find out if someone covers their business during those times, and who that person is. It’s difficult to sell a house if the person responsible for selling it can’t be reached.
How Often Will I Hear From You When My Home Is on the Market?
This is another excellent question, but how many Realtors will actually admit that you’ll rarely hear from them? Probably none, even though some listing agents do disappear after the contract is signed.
Ask them to name specific reasons they’ll be in touch beyond simply receiving an offer. Will they share showing feedback? Provide market updates, and if so, how often? Notify you when a comparable home comes on the market, goes under contract, or sells?
Who Will I Actually Be Working With After I Sign?
If you’re meeting with a team leader, ask whether that person will personally handle your listing, or whether you’ll primarily be dealing with an assistant, showing coordinator, transaction coordinator, or another agent on the team. Neither structure is wrong, but you deserve to know which one you’re signing up for before you sign anything.
Questions About Experience and Track Record
What Area Do You Primarily Work In?
This is a great question that not every seller thinks to ask. A Florida-licensed real estate agent can work throughout the state, but that doesn’t mean every agent is equally familiar with every local market. An agent who primarily sells condos in downtown West Palm Beach may not be the best fit to sell an equestrian estate in Wellington.
How Many Sales Did You Close Last Year?
This is a good subject, but as typically asked, it can be misleading. Say you interview four agents and ask this question.
- Agent 1 has eighty closed sales
- Agent 2 has fifty
- Agent 3 has thirty
- Agent 4 has five
If quantity is all that matters, Agent 1 wins. But that number alone doesn’t tell you whether those sales were achieved solo or across a real estate team, or whether they were mostly buyer-side transactions rather than listings.
That distinction matters more than the total. A better version of this question is: how many homes have you personally listed in the past twelve months, and how many of your transactions were on the listing side versus representing buyers? An agent with fifty total sales but only a handful of actual listings has a very different skill set than one whose business is built primarily around listing and selling homes.
What Percentage of Your Business Comes From Past Clients and Referrals?
Regardless of industry, people who provide outstanding service tend to earn referrals and repeat business without asking for it. A high percentage of repeat and referral business can be a positive signal, though it shouldn’t be viewed in isolation.
An agent who specializes heavily in relocation, luxury, new construction, or investors may naturally have a different referral profile than one working a broader general market. Ask the percentage, and ask how many past clients they’ve worked with more than once, rather than treating either number as the whole story on its own.
Questions About Pricing Strategy
How Did You Determine My Recommended Listing Price?
This might be the single most important question on this list. Don’t simply choose the agent who gives you the highest number. Ask them to walk you through recent comparable sales, current competing listings, pending sales, market conditions, your home’s condition and updates, location, and how long similar homes took to sell. An agent who can clearly explain their reasoning is giving you far more useful information than one who just names a price.
What’s Your List to Sales Price Ratio?
This question sounds logical, but most people don’t realize the seller, NOT the Realtor, decides the list price and which terms to accept. So does an agent’s list to sales price ratio really reflect their negotiating skill? Unless it’s something extreme, like 60%, this is largely a meaningless number on its own, and it can be deceiving.
A seller might accept a full price offer but credit the buyer $10,000 at closing, showing 100% on paper while netting less. Or a seller might test the market with an inflated price because they “don’t want to give their home away,” eventually reduce it, and sell at the new asking price, again showing 100% despite starting much higher.
A more useful set of questions looks at the full picture:
- How often do your listings sell at or above the original asking price?
- How often do they require a price reduction?
- What’s your average days on market compared to the local market?
- How many of your listings have expired or been withdrawn without selling?
An agent with a 99% list to sale ratio who routinely needs two or three price reductions to get there isn’t telling you the same story as one who prices accurately from the start.
Questions About Marketing and Showings
What Is Your Marketing Plan for My Home?
Every seller should ask this and expect a detailed answer in return. Technically, an agent can say your home will be advertised on thousands of websites and not be lying, since MLS listings automatically syndicate that widely. But does their plan stop there? Do they pay for any advertising? Will they market on other real estate sites or social media? Push a bit further than the surface-level answer.
Will You Provide Me With Feedback From Showings?
The topic is worth addressing, but the question itself is vague, since any agent can say yes regardless of whether they actually follow up consistently. A sharper version would be: “Will you follow up after each showing for feedback, how many times, and through what method?” A strong Realtor should tell you what they see, including potential negatives, before buyers start pointing them out during showings.
Do You Have Advice About the Condition of My Home?
This is a great question I rarely get asked, but I always address it regardless. A seller should never hear their home is cluttered from a prospective buyer. Unless your home already shows like a model, your Realtor should have specific recommendations to improve how it presents.
Questions About Costs and the Contract
What Will My Closing Costs Be?
The real estate commission isn’t the only potential cost tied to selling a home in Palm Beach County. Depending on the transaction and the terms of your contract, you may also have brokerage or transaction fees, title-related expenses, a lien search, documentary stamp taxes, and other closing costs. Your listing agent should be able to provide an estimated seller net sheet showing the costs you can reasonably expect.
What Happens If I Want to Cancel the Listing Agreement?
This is worth asking before you sign, not after. Understand the length of the agreement, any cancellation provisions or protection periods, and whether canceling early comes with fees. This is covered in more depth in what to know before signing a listing agreement.
Lower-Priority Questions Still Worth Asking
Can You Recommend Service People, Like a Handyman?
A strong vendor network can genuinely be useful, especially in South Florida where you may need a painter, handyman, landscaper, or cleaner. But I wouldn’t choose a listing agent simply because they handed you a long list of contractors. It’s a nice benefit, not a deciding factor, since preferences on any given vendor vary from person to person anyway.
Can You Provide Me With Names and Phone Numbers of Past Clients?
Yes, absolutely, and it’s a question most sellers don’t think to ask. One of the best ways to learn about a Realtor is by reading their reviews and speaking directly with past clients. With that being said, an agent is never going to provide you with names and numbers of unhappy clients.
Red Flags When Interviewing a Listing Agent
Watch for an agent who:
- Promises an unrealistically high listing price just to win the listing
- Can’t explain how they arrived at their recommended price
- Gives vague answers about their marketing plan
- Can’t clearly say who will actually handle your listing
- Doesn’t have a clear communication plan
- Focuses almost entirely on their total transaction count
- Says “I’ll get you the highest price” without explaining how
- Can’t provide references or reviews
- Avoids discussing potential problems with your home
- Pressures you to sign immediately
Questions a Good Listing Agent Should Ask You
A listing appointment shouldn’t be a one-way interrogation where you ask a list of questions and the agent just answers them. A good agent should be asking about your situation too, including:
- Why you’re selling?
- When you need to move?
- Whether you’ve already purchased another home?
- What improvements you’ve made?
- Whether there are any known issues with the property?
- What price you’re hoping to achieve?
- What concerns you have about the process?
If an agent spends the entire appointment talking about themselves and barely asks about your goals, that’s worth paying attention to.
Quick Reference: Every Question by Category
| Category | Question | How Useful |
|---|---|---|
| Communication | What hours do you work? | High |
| Communication | How often will I hear from you? | High |
| Communication | Who will I actually work with after I sign? | High |
| Experience | What area do you primarily work in? | High |
| Experience | How many homes have you sold or listed? | Medium, needs listing-side context |
| Experience | What percentage of your business is referrals? | Medium, not standalone proof |
| Pricing | How did you determine my listing price? | High |
| Pricing | What’s your list to sale ratio? | Low on its own |
| Marketing | What’s your marketing plan for my home? | High |
| Marketing | Will you provide feedback from showings? | Medium, depends on specifics |
| Marketing | Do you have advice on my home’s condition? | High |
| Costs & Contract | What will my closing costs be? | High |
| Costs & Contract | What happens if I want to cancel? | High |
| Extras | Can you recommend service people? | Low |
| Extras | Can I contact your past clients? | High |
Frequently Asked Questions About Interviewing a Listing Agent
What is the most important question to ask a Realtor before hiring them?
There’s no single most important question, but asking how they’ll communicate with you, what their marketing plan actually includes, and how they arrived at your recommended listing price will tell you more than most other questions combined.
Should I interview more than one Realtor before selling my home?
Yes. Interviewing a few agents gives you a real basis for comparison on experience, marketing, communication style, and personality fit, rather than hiring the first person you talk to.
Should I choose the Realtor who recommends the highest listing price?
Not automatically. A high suggested price can be a genuine reflection of market value, or it can be a tactic to win the listing. Ask the agent to walk through the comparable sales and market data behind their number before deciding.
What should a listing agent’s marketing plan include?
A good marketing plan should go beyond simply putting the home in the MLS and relying on automatic syndication. Ask for specifics about photography(opens in new tab), online marketing, social media, and buyer and agent outreach planned for your property.
Does a high list to sales price ratio mean an agent negotiates well?
Not necessarily. The seller controls the list price and which offers to accept, so this number often reflects pricing strategy more than negotiating skill, and it can be misleading depending on credits or price changes during the listing.
What should I ask about closing costs before listing my home?
Ask your agent for an estimated seller net sheet showing the expected sale price, commissions, closing costs, credits, taxes, and other anticipated expenses, so you can see approximately what you may walk away with.
Final Thoughts
Not all questions are created equal when it comes to interviewing a Realtor. Some are genuinely valuable, others are pretty meaningless, so it’s worth understanding what you’re actually asking and how the answer should shape your decision. Before you sign anything, it’s also worth reading what to know before signing a listing agreement, and if you want more ground covered beyond what’s here, this list of questions to ask before hiring a real estate agent is a good next stop.
Thinking about interviewing listing agents? Don’t just ask how many homes they sold. Ask how they’ll price, market, and communicate with you, and make sure you’re actually comfortable with the answers. If you’re selling a home in Wellington or the surrounding Palm Beach County communities, I’d be happy to sit down with you, answer your questions, and explain how I’d approach the sale.
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About the Author
Top Wellington Realtor, Michelle Gibson, wrote “Questions to Ask a Realtor When Selling Your Home.”
Michelle has specialized in residential real estate since 2001 throughout Wellington, Florida, and the surrounding area. Whether you’re looking to buy, sell, or rent, she’ll guide you through the entire transaction. If you’re ready to put her knowledge and expertise to work for you, call or email her today.
Areas of service include Wellington, Lake Worth, Royal Palm Beach, Boynton Beach, West Palm Beach, Loxahatchee, Greenacres, and more.
