Thinking of Selling? Five Questions for YOU to Answer Before Any Agent Comes Round

Before you compare brochures and fees, get clear on what you actually want from your move. These are the questions we'd ask anyone thinking of selling, whoever you end up instructing.

Most people start the selling process by inviting a few agents round. It makes sense. You want a figure, a feel for who you trust and some idea of what it will cost.

The trouble is that agents, ourselves included, are very good at talking about agents. You'll hear about photography, portals, viewings and marketing plans. You'll come away with three valuations and three fees. What you may not come away with is a clearer idea of your own move.

That part is yours and it's easier to work out before anyone arrives with a folder. These five questions help. None of them has a right answer. All of them change how your home should be sold.

1. Have you found where you want to go next?

A sale without a next step is a sale under pressure. If you're still searching, you may need time, a buyer who can wait or somewhere to rent in between. If you've already found somewhere and it's slipping away, speed and certainty may be worth more than an extra few thousand pounds.

Know which camp you're in before anyone mentions a price. The same house gets sold very differently depending on the answer.

2. What matters most in this move?

Price, timing, privacy, certainty. Everyone wants all four. Very few moves deliver all four in equal measure.

Put them in order. It's usually a longer conversation than people expect, particularly between couples. A family leaving a home after thirty years may care more about who buys it, and how quietly, than about the last pound. A relocation with a start date attached is a different animal entirely.

Once you know the order, you'll recognise quickly whether an agent's plan fits it.

3. Who needs to know you're selling?

For some people the answer is everyone. Get it online, get the photographs out and let a bit of competition do the rest.

For others it's as few people as possible. Neighbours, colleagues, family who haven't been told yet. A home that sits on the portals for weeks invites questions

and the days-on-market counter keeps ticking whether you like it or not.

If privacy matters, ask every agent you meet what they can do before anything goes online. Some can introduce you to registered buyers or market a home discreetly first. Many can only offer a portal listing.

4. What's the least you'd take?

This one makes people wince. Surely the point of a valuation is the most you could get.

The least you'd take is the honest version of the price conversation. The Home Report gives a valuation for lenders. It isn't a price tag and it isn't a promise. What matters is the figure that makes your next move work.

Work it out before the valuations arrive. A high figure feels lovely at the kitchen table. It feels rather different after eight weeks online and a price reduction. If the number you need and the number buyers will pay are far apart, better to know now.

5. What would you need from an agent to get started?

This is the only question about the agent. It belongs last.

By now you know the outcome you want, the order of your priorities, how private this needs to be and the number that works. That's your brief. Hold every agent up against it. The one worth hiring is the one whose plan fits your answers, not the one with the longest list of things they'll do.

How we use these questions

Phil and I ask all five at every appraisal, before we say a word about ourselves. The answers decide whether a sale starts with a quiet introduction to one of our registered buyers, a discreet Hush Home listing or a full launch on Rightmove.

If you'd like to work through them with us, we'll come to you. No obligation. No pressure.

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