“Estate Agent Roles”

Your Estate Agent Qualifies Your Buyer

Estate agent roles are varied – qualifying your buyer will save precious time.  The phrase “Willing and Able” is seldom heard today, as it seems to have disappeared from estate agency documentation.  However, it remains important to discover if a prospective Buyer for your property is indeed ‘willing and able’ to proceed, should they express interest in your home.

Agent Role – Question your Buyer

This is especially the case today, when people are finding it harder to get a mortgage than they did maybe last time they bought.  But apart from the obvious financial issues governing the Buyer’s “ability” to proceed, there are several other things a good agent will seek to discover when deciding whether or not any offer from the Buyer is worth recommending to the Vendor (although all are bound to be submitted to the Vendor by law).

One of the critical questions we ask our Buyers is “What has prompted your move?”  The answer to this often goes right to the heart of why they are moving.  Only then can we offer them properties which will satisfy that need.

Agent Role – Qualify your Buyer

Another critical question is “when do you hope to move?”  If they say “sometime in the next 12 months” the chance of them buying soon is low.  Most Buyers know what they need to achieve and they usually have a date in mind. This date is often linked to school term times, a new job starting, baby due, etc, or it may be to satisfy an acute frustration such as journey time to work.  Only when the Agent knows what sort of time-frame the Buyers have in mind can he/she begin to gauge the Buyers’ motivation and hence their willingness to move.

Additionally finding out where they are in the ‘moving cycle’ can also help us to help you as a Vendor.  Have they sold their own house yet?  If so, what do they understand by the term “sold”!

There’s more than meets the eye to qualifying Buyers, and if you’d like your own sale handled with kid gloves, call us on 01273-735237 or email teamsales@enquiries.co.uk