6 Questions to Ask For Qualifying Real Estate Leads

Real estate agents are always searching for quality home seller leads that will help them to increase their business growth and also enhance their career. But the home sellers must qualify and be of the highest quality. For everyone, a house is one of the most significant investments of their life — the largest investment! So when they have decided to sell it, they need to be extremely clear whether their decision to sell the house is right or not.

A house selling process is extremely daunting. The home sellers would have to take up numerous tasks at hand, and they would always feel that the time is running out. The entire process starts with decluttering, home staging, and also getting the property listed on the real estate portals. There is also the added stress of scheduling home tours and negotiations. Sometimes, it might happen that due to the highly stressful process, a home seller might completely drop the idea of selling the house.

In all this confusion, the agent is at a loss. You might be considering the leads and trying to convince them to turn them into potential clients. But if they drop the idea in-between, your efforts would go in vain. So it is quite important for you as a real estate agent to ask a few essential questions. Asking the qualifying questions for real estate buyers is critical to your maximum success. These qualifying questions for real estate buyers will help you to qualify the real estate leads. Here is an ultimate checklist of questions that you can ask the home seller leads. So let’s check them out.

1: Why Do You Want To Sell The House?

For every home seller, it is quite essential to understand and be clear why they would want to sell the house. If you ask this question, you will begin to understand if they are selling for pleasure or pain. It is important to discover if they need to move because of pleasure or pain. Whatever is the main purpose of selling the house can vary depending on the requirement of the home seller.

For instance, the sellers might have a problem with job location, are interested to move to a smaller house or to a larger house, and various life events such as marriage, childbirth, or death of a near and dear one, could make home sellers decide to sell their house. It is quite essential to know the purpose behind the selling of the house because it will help in identifying whether the home seller would be determined to sell or not. If they tell you they want to downsize, you should ask the seller, "what is motivating you to downsize?". Is it that simply the house is too big to clean? They can no longer afford the higher mortgage payment and higher utility bills? Did they lose a job and their new job pays less?

It is also important for real agents to continue with the process. If the sellers are determined to sell the house, then they would be agreeing to the lower offers as well, which will eliminate the need for the negotiations. So as a real estate agent, your responsibility is to ensure whether the home seller leadsqualify as high quality or not. The last thing you want is a real estate lead that is unrealistic and very motivated. You want a homeowner who will need to move vs wanting to move.

2: Have You Interviewed Other Agents?

Many home sellers like to interview multiple agents and finally choose who they feel most comfortable and confident with. The home sellers are doing this so that they can have better opportunities to find the best buyers in the neighborhood. So asking this question, if they have spoken with another agent, will confirm whether your home seller lead is interviewing only you or someone else too. If there are several agents vs just a few, then you might want to move on, because this usually means they are looking for someone who will tell them what they want to hear vs what the truth is. You can let another agent work with them and you can find somebody who is a more serious home seller. Shockingly we have heard from other agents that they have interviewed with sellers who are already working with another agent, and it just is not in the MLS yet.

3: How Long Has The House Has Been Listed On The Real Estate Market?

This is one of the most essential questions for For Sale By Owners (FSBOs), which you can ask the home sellers to categorize them as qualified leads or not. If the house has been on the market for a long period, then the home sellers would be quite frustrated because of not getting the right buyers. When the houses are not getting sold, you should dive in to learn their true motivations. They might not be motivated at all or there might be something severally wrong with the house.

If it is an expired or cancelled listing, sometimes the previous real estate agent might have made some mistakes while having it listed. You do need to talk to the home sellers in identifying the right reason and how to overcome the reason behind it. Besides, you can improve the home selling strategies, which will make the home selling smooth and simplified. This question would also be helpful in understanding whether they are interested to work with you or not. It will be easy for you to make the right decision. It is usually one of the following reasons: condition, price range, location, or availability to be seen. Asking the right questions will help you know if the real estate lead is somebody you can help and or want to help.

4: What Do You Know About The Real Estate Market?

Most often, the home sellers do not have any knowledge of the real estate market trends. Being ignorant about the status of the real estate market makes them vulnerable to mishaps. Qualified real estate leads are those people who are completely aware of the trends of the real estate market and understand how these would have a huge impact on the home selling process. Besides, it will help them in understanding the low interest of buyers, the price range in their neighborhood, or other changes in the real estate world. With the right knowledge of the home sellers, you would be able to identify whether they qualify as real estate leads or not. It becomes easier for the agents to deal with qualified leads because once they exhibit the real picture or status of the real estate market, it won’t be a surprise to them. For instance, you can easily sort out the issues if the market is in the favor of the buyers and the asking price seems too high.

5: Do You Have A Property Where You Would Be Moving Into?

When the home sellers are already having a property where they would be moving into after selling, the house seller seems completely determined to move on with the selling process. If the sellers do not have a house under contract to move into, they would be unsure of the selling process and might even back out at the last minute. You can consider those who have a property ready to move in as qualifying real estate leads, as they would be motivated to sell the property. For instance, if the seller wants to sell the house because of his job location, then there would be a residential property in the other city or some sort of company accommodation. So when the people are having a backup, they stick to their decision of the house selling process.

6: Are You Having Any Timelines For Getting Your House Sold?

This is the last and the most important question that a real estate agent must ask for the qualification of the lead process. How soon do you need to have this property sold? The answer they give you will help you understand whether the home sellers are genuine about the selling process or just wasting away your time. Moreover, the answer to this very question will clarify whether the leads would pass through your sales funnel and bring in good business for the firm or not.

Based on the information you received, you can set the strategy to convert the prospective clients into a potential listing agreement to sell their property. If the opinion of the people seems to be dicey, then you must follow up with a strategy to explain the condition of the real estate market in the next 6 to 12 months’ time. You can encourage them by showing them the right time to sell the property when the market is in alignment with being able to meet their needs. If you think that the sellers are not certain about the selling process, then they may not be serious about it.

Although these six questions are extremely important when it comes to qualifying real estate leads, apart from these, you can ask a few more qualifying questions for real estate buyers, which will help you to make an informed decision.

Sub-Question List

What Was The Price Of The House When The Sellers Purchased It?

Most often, the agents do not find this question relevant in the process of lead qualification, but it is. You can easily get to know what was the amount paid by the homeowner when he/she purchased it. The most important thing is that you would know the actual value of the house and to what level the cost of residential properties has increased within a couple of years. Besides, you would be having an idea of how the open sellers would consider the value of the house and move ahead with the negotiation. This also shows that the real estate agent might lower the asking price of the house because they would still be making a reasonable amount of profit with the house deal. In this way, you would understand that even if the sellers are getting a bit lower than the asking price, they would be interested in making the sale. Such leads would easily qualify as leads.

What Are The Things Included In The Sale?

Along with the house, all the important things such as gadgets, appliances, and embedded smart technology would be considered a part of the sale. These things would immediately increase the value of the house and, in turn, the asking price. When the sellers are completely sure about the things they wish to include in the sale, they are quite determined to move ahead with the house selling process. They have already defined all the parameters and are ready to work out the negotiation with the buyers. You, being an agent, can easily work with them because they qualify as high-quality leads.

What Are The Factors You Are Looking In For A Real Estate Agent?

This is one of the most important sub-questions which will let you know whether you can persuade them for the lead qualification process or not. There might be multiple factors such as experience, feedback of the past clients and house selling strategy, and many more which will help the home sellers to know whether they can work with a particular real estate agent or not. When you get to know about the factors, you can easily rate yourself and understand whether you fit their requirements or not. If you think the factors are not relevant and suitable to you, you can either improve yourself and still focus on converting them as your potential clients or you can drop the idea.

What Was The Past Experience Of The Home Sellers With Real Estate Agents?

This question will also be relevant in the process of lead qualification. If the experiences for the home sellers have been positive with the real estate agents, then you can expect confidence of a certain level. You can easily work with them and consider them qualified real estate leads. But if the experiences were not so good or extremely negative, then you would have to put in more effort in order to gain the trust and move ahead with the house selling process. More importantly, this question would help you to understand what mistakes were made by the past real estate agents and try to overcome them. For instance, if your prospective leads mention ineffective communication, then you can make sure you are not repeating similar things with the prospective leads. You need to make sure that your relationship skills are the best to build a strong rapport with the clients.

Summary:

If you want to succeed in the real estate business, then you must not only focus on the home seller lead generation but also learn to segregate the qualified leads. It will help you save a lot of time, money, and effort as you would be approaching only qualified leads. If you chase behind unqualified leads, you won’t be able to get any benefit out of it. Hence, it is essential for all real estate agents to invest their time and energy in the right direction.