Great, maybe.
True professional agents learn how to quickly qualify a prospective buyer. They want to determine two things:
The reason for qualifying a prospective buyer is simple enough. You don’t want to spend hours and hours showing property to someone who can’t or isn’t likely to buy in a reasonable time frame.
In some markets, that time frame is actually immediately because homes are again selling rapidly. In others the decision to actually put an offer on a home takes place in a more leisurely fashion. But it shouldn’t go on for weeks and months – you simply have too many other potential clients to spend that kind of non-productive client who can’t make up their mind no matter what.
By learning how to qualify buyers you screen out the time sinks so you can truly be of service to the qualified.
Qualifying is done for the most part through questioning the potential client. Here are some samples:
Some agents feel awkward asking these questions. Yet, if you’re going to be successful at selling homes you absolutely need to have straight answers to all of these or you’re spinning your wheels, which doesn’t help the client either.
Of course, you’ve also got to listen deeply and carefully. It’s not just the words folks use that will clue you in about the potential client, it’s also how they say them and what they leave out.
Do you have qualifying questions you’d like to add to this list? Tell us in comments.
Before Anne Wayman became a writer she sold real estate in Southern California. She worked with her father who learned the business from his father. Not surprisingly she learned a few things along the way. Since then, she has been freelance writing for over 30 years – she is a grandmother, loves cats and writes about a wide variety of topics including real estate.