Written from the trenches of Auckland real estate by Amit Sharma — Bayleys agent, 10+ years marketing experience.
You are about to hand someone the largest asset you own and pay them tens of thousands of dollars. Most vendors interview two or three agents, all of whom are polished and all of whom quote a number. Here is how to tell them apart — and I am writing this knowing it is the same test I have to pass.
Ask for the last ten properties they personally listed — not their team, not their brand. Look at list price versus sale price, days on market, and whether each one actually sold.
The word "personally" is doing the heavy lifting there, and the word "listed" matters as much. An agent can quote impressive numbers built mostly from sales where they were the second agent on a buyer, or where a colleague did the work. Ask specifically: of these ten, how many did you list, run and close yourself? And ask for the ten most recent, not their ten best. Every agent has ten good ones.
Withdrawn listings are the number nobody volunteers. If four of the last ten came off the market unsold, that is not automatically damning — sometimes a vendor's circumstances change — but it deserves an explanation, and the explanation will tell you a lot.
Ask how they will market your specific property, and ask to see examples of marketing they have produced for similar homes. Generic packages are a red flag.
Push past the brochure on this one. Ask who the buyer for your home actually is — first-home buyers, downsizers, investors, developers — and ask them to explain how each element of the proposed spend reaches that specific person. If the answer is the same package they would put on any home in the suburb, you are paying for a template.
Ask who will be at every open home and who answers buyer enquiries. The person you sign with should be the person who shows your home.
Get the answer in specifics, not in principle. Who picks up the phone at seven on a Sunday evening when a buyer has a question? If the answer is a junior or a call centre, you have learned something important — because the person who handles that call is the person who either creates a second bidder or loses one.
Ask about their commission, marketing spend, and what is included. Cheapest is rarely best, but unexplained premium pricing is also a warning.
Two specific things to pin down in writing. First, is the marketing spend payable whether or not the property sells — in most cases it is, so know the number before you sign. Second, what is the length of the sole agency and what happens at the end of it. A long tie-up with an agent who has gone quiet is a genuinely miserable position to be in.
Then there is the number they quote you. If one agent's appraisal is well above the others, ask them to walk you through the comparable sales behind it, and ask what they would recommend doing if the first two weeks brought no offers at that level. An agent who has thought about the answer is being straight with you. An agent who has not may be buying the listing with a number they intend to talk you down from later — which costs you the most valuable two weeks your property will ever have.
Trust your gut on communication. You will be talking to this person at least weekly for two months. If they are slow to reply during the pitch, they will be slower during the campaign.
Agree the reporting rhythm before you sign: what day you will hear from them, in what form, and what it will contain. Open-home numbers, buyer feedback, and where each interested party sits should be a standing weekly item, not something you have to chase.
And one more — ask for references you can actually call. A good agent will hand you a list without hesitating.
When you call them, ask one question above all others: what went wrong during the campaign, and how did the agent handle it? Every campaign has a moment that does not go to plan. How an agent behaves in that moment is the only part of this job that genuinely separates people.
Last thing, and it costs you nothing: check the licence. Every agent in New Zealand must be licensed under the Real Estate Agents Act 2008, and the Real Estate Authority maintains a public register showing the licence status and any disciplinary findings. It takes a minute and almost nobody does it.