Seller Questions

[Michael Quarles]

If you only could ask 10 questions which 10 questions would you ask a seller?

1. Owner first and last name.
2. Do you have a cell phone?
3. Are you calling about a note you received regarding selling your house?
4. Do you have a house you're hoping to sell?
5. Is the house listed with a real estate agent?
6. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being highly motivated, how would you rank your motivation to sell?
7. What's the address of the house you're hoping to sell? City? State? Zip?
8. How Many Bedrooms and Bathrooms?
9. What do you think your house will appraise for in today's market?
10. What are you asking for the house?

[J Scott]

If you only have 10 questions, here are my thoughts on your questions:

1. If you have the property address, you can figure this information out using tax records, so this doesn't seem necessary.

2. What does a "yes" answer tell you? It doesn't give you an useful information. Instead, you should ask, "What is the best phone number to reach you?"

3. As long as you only use that phone number for marketing, there is no reason to ask this question. You already know the answer.

4. See #3 above. The answer should be yes. And if the answer is no, the rest of the 10 questions don't matter anyway, so no reason to ask it.

5. If you have the property address, you can do an MLS (or realtor.com) search to see if it's listed with an agent. Therefore, this information is unnecessary.

6. They called you, didn't they? If they had bad options than calling a random number on a sign or flyer, they'd probably already have gone down another road. Also, while they may not be overly motivated, they're not going to tell you that...I'm sure they think they're motivated, which is why they called. No need for this question.

7. Good question. Should be #2 behind "What's the best phone number to reach you?"

8. Again, you can get this info from the tax records.

9. This is meaningless. Many real estate professionals have no idea how to analyze comps, so there's no way a typical homeowner can. If you're looking for an idea of what the home is worth, check the MLS. If you're looking to find out how much the buyer values the house, you should ask, "If I could offer you cash for your home in 10 days, what is the lowest price you would accept?" or something like that.

10. See #9 above.

So, of your 10 questions, you really only need to ask three of them:

Phone Number, Address, How Much Do You Want?

That leaves you with 7 more questions to ask...

Perhaps they could include:

- How much do you owe on the property?
- Why are you looking to sell?
- Are you current on your mortgage?
- How quickly can you get out?

I'm sure there are others, but those are the important questions I'd want to know the answers to.