How to choose a real estate agent: the 12 questions that matter

Choosing the agent is the biggest lever you control in a sale. The spread between a strong local operator and a weak one - in price achieved, days on market and stress absorbed - is routinely worth multiples of the fee, and in a correcting market it widens: with Sydney values drifting lower and the top end leading the falls (upper-quartile values fell 3.2% in three months to July, Cotality), campaign skill is the difference between a result and a lesson.

Interview two or three agents. Ask all of them the same twelve questions, in this order, and write the answers down - the comparison is where the truth lives.

The performance questions

1. "What have you sold within a kilometre of here in the last six months?"

Good answer: specific addresses, prices, and what happened in each campaign, recalled without notes. Weak answer: agency-wide numbers, or sales from three suburbs away. You are hiring their buyer database for homes like yours; it either exists or it does not.

2. "What is your average days on market, and the suburb's?"

Good answer: knows both numbers and the gap. Sydney's citywide average sits around 37 days this winter (Cotality, July 2026); a strong local agent runs under their suburb's norm and can say why. Weak: "every property is different" with no number attached.

3. "What do your results look like against the asking price?"

Good answer: a sold-versus-guide figure and examples both above and below - honesty about the below ones is the tell. This one statistic captures pricing skill and negotiation in a single number.

4. "Walk me through how you would price this home."

Good answer: a range built from named comparable sales, adjusted for your differences, with logic you can follow - and ideally slightly uncomfortable. Red flag: the highest number in the room with the least evidence behind it. Overquoting to win the listing is the oldest trick in the industry, and it costs sellers real money: the overpriced launch burns the premium buyer window, then follows the market down.

The strategy questions

5. "Auction or private treaty for this home - and why?"

Good answer: a recommendation for your property and buyer pool, with the trade-offs. Context matters: Sydney clearance rates have been running in the low-to-mid 50s this winter (Domain / My Housing Market, August 2026), so "auction, always" deserves scrutiny; so does blanket fear of auctions in a tight-stock suburb where they still fly. What you want is reasoning, not a house style.

6. "Show me the marketing plan - and what I pay for."

Good answer: a written week-by-week schedule: photography, portal tiers, social, signage, database launch - with vendor-paid advertising itemised and justified line by line. Ask which items they would cut on a budget and watch whether the answer protects your interests or their brand exposure.

7. "Who actually runs my campaign?"

Good answer: names. Who does opens, who calls buyers back, who negotiates, who reports to you. Star agents with big teams sometimes sell the listing and delegate the work - fine, if you knew.

8. "How do you qualify and work the buyers?"

Good answer: a process: finance position checked, second visits engineered, underbidders from recent campaigns brought across, offers documented. This is the invisible 80% of the job.

The terms questions

9. "What is your fee, and what does it include?"

Sydney commissions typically run roughly 1.5% to 2.5% plus marketing, thinner in premium price brackets, and everything is negotiable. Cheapest is not the goal - net proceeds are. A skilled negotiator at 1.9% who lands 3% more than a discounter at 1.4% has made you money. Consider a tiered incentive (base fee, higher rate above an agreed threshold) to align interests - just set the threshold off evidence, not flattery (see question 4).

10. "Explain the agency agreement before I sign it."

Good answer: plain-language walkthrough of: exclusive agency period (in NSW, keep it to a standard campaign length - roughly 8 to 12 weeks - not six months), your cooling-off period (one business day in NSW), what happens if you withdraw, and any post-agreement clause where the agent is still owed commission for buyers they introduced. If they cannot explain it simply, do not sign it that day.

11. "How and when will you report to me?"

Good answer: a fixed rhythm - post-open same-day debrief, written weekly summary with numbers (enquiries, inspections, second visits, feedback on price), and a standing rule that you hear bad news first and fast.

12. "What would make you tell me not to sell right now?"

The character question. An agent who can name conditions to wait - your timeline, the buyer pool, a better season for your property type - is advising you. One who has never met a bad time to list is prospecting you.

Reading agent statistics without being fooled

• Mix matters: a median built on units in one suburb tells you nothing about your house in another. Ask for like-for-like results only.
• Recency matters: 2021 trophies say little about a 2026 correction. Weight the last 12 months.
• Review patterns beat review counts: read the recent ones, look for repeated specifics (communication, negotiation) rather than volume alone - and check the platform (RateMyAgent verifies against actual sales).
• Every profile is marketing - including profiles on comparison sites, ours included: figures an agency supplies are its own claims until you probe them in the room. The twelve questions are the probe.

Red flags, collected

• An appraisal well above every other agent's, delivered with the least evidence.
• Fee discounting in the first ten minutes - watch what they will do to your price if they negotiate their own income that fast.
• Pressure to sign the agreement at the kitchen table "so we can start tonight".
• Vague on who does the work, or on what the marketing money buys.
• No recent local sales, no local buyer stories, no answer to question 12.

Run the interviews, score the grid, then decide with your head. And if you want the shortlist done for you - matched on exactly these numbers - that is what this site does, free.