10 Questions to ask your seller before listing the property

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Coordinating showings for listings has never been fun. In the luxury market, for example, listing agents have always known that open houses are for crowds and private tours are for privacy. With occupied listings, coordinating tours around the owner’s schedule (or their tenants’) has always been a headache. But in 2020, we’re seeing a perfect storm of compounding and complicating factors: limited inventory and low interest rates have led to strong sellers’ markets across many regions while restrictions introduced to suppress Covid-19 limit the number of buyers that can visit a listing at any given time.

Listing agents have taken on this new burden in stride, but that doesn’t make it fun. 

At Clozio, we’re committed to removing the friction from real estate transactions, allowing agents to spend more time serving their clients and less time on everything else. I am proud to share 2 free resources that listing agents can use today to further elevate their client service and save time. 

Elevate Your Service

Ask your seller these 10 questions in order to manage their expectations and prevent embarrassing cancellations that can damage your reputation and make it harder to sell the home! (Pro Tip - if you like these questions, feel free to download our free questionnaire below for a print-friendly copy you can take to Listing Appointments!)

Manage Traffic Flow

Accommodating all buyer tour requests is the best way to get your home sold as quickly as possible for the highest price. But last minute buyer showings can be disruptive to occupants and overlapping tours may turn-off some buyers. Ask these questions to ensure the process isn’t too overwhelming:
 

1.  How much advance notice would you like before a buyer tour? (If owner-occupied, this is how long Sellers will have to clean and vacate the home.)
   
   
2. How many concurrent appointments are you comfortable with? (During Covid - we strongly recommend no more than 1 appointment at a time, but discussing this with your Seller is important in managing expectations.)
   
   
3. How much buffer would you like between appointments?
   
   
4. How many buyer tours are you comfortable with during any given day?

Setting Availability Windows

Minimizing inconvenience while maximizing buyer tour opportunities requires that everyone agrees to when buyer tour appointments can be scheduled and how long they last. There may also be community / association restrictions governing when tours are allowed. Ask these questions to prevent surprises:

1. How long are you comfortable with each tour lasting? (Some buyers move quickly through properties while others prefer to spend longer and envision their own furniture in the space.)
   
   
2. How long in advance should we allow scheduling? (Creating a sense of urgency is important, but we should not be so restrictive that a potential buyer is discouraged from looking at the property due to their inability to schedule.)
   
   
3. What time of day is acceptable for buyer tours? (Be sure to check community / association restrictions!)
   
   

Consistent Messaging

Each tour is more than just a visitor walking through your property; it’s an opportunity to sell them on what their life may be like if they lived there (or owned it). Decluttering, de-personalizing, and leaving the home sparkling clean will help potential buyers visualize themselves in the home. The furnishings should also match the MLS photos, whenever possible. Discuss these questions to engage your sellers in the success of future showings.

1. What hurdles, if any, shall we impose before scheduling buyer tours? (Requiring pre-approval letters before scheduling may turn-off casual buyers, but will also ensure we don’t waste your time with unnecessary “lookie-Lou” appointments.)
   
   
2. Are there any features that we specifically want to ask showing agents to highlight? (Hidden storage? Neighborhood hiking trails?)
   
   
3. Which access instructions would you like to share with buyers’ agents? (If the home has an alarm, will it be armed or disarmed? If the home has security videos or other smart home features, are disclosures required? If so, how will they be delivered?)

Save Time

Once you know your Sellers wishes and have set expectations, it’s time to start booking tours. There are lots of tools available to manage calendars, from Calendly to ShowingTime. But Calendly only works well if you plan on attending all the showings (or only have 1), because your availability becomes the home’s availability. At Clozio, we built a free Tour Management feature to help listing agents get tours scheduled effortlessly and conveniently. And once you have a free transaction hub set up in Clozio, publishing a tour availability calendar only takes 30 seconds! Here’s how it works:

1. From your transaction hub, go to the Tour Management section and enable your free availability calendar
2. Fill in the answers to these 10 questions (don’t worry - we automatically default to the most common answers)
3. Save your settings, then copy your unique link for whomever to share it with! We recommend pasting the link directly into your MLS Access Instructions or Private Remarks section
4. Sit back, relax, and watch the calendar fill up

When you invest time promoting the property rather than coordinating its tours, you’ll sell homes faster, net higher proceeds for your sellers, and save hours of your own time. That’s a win-win-win!