Six questions you should ask a real estate agent when buying a home

When buying a home, it pays to approach the purchase with as much information as possible.

The selling agent is your key point of contact throughout the process, and may hold more information about the property than can be gleaned from the listing or an inspection.

These are six key questions to ask the agent which can reveal more about a property than you might think.

1. Who owns the property and what’s their story?

The first time Ray White chief executive officer Brian White bought a home, he never thought to find out about the vendors, and regretted it many times afterwards.

“With later purchases, I did, and sometimes the previous owners would even come around and reminisce about their time in the house,” he said.

“That made the whole thing feel very satisfying to hear about past joys that had taken place there and how they felt about the property.

“It’s great to hear which features they particularly loved, and understand the house even more. It makes it a richer experience.”

2. What do you think of this suburb, this street and this location?

Agents, particularly if they’re local to the area, can be a veritable font of knowledge that’s very useful to tap into, believes Raine & Horne Petersham director Frederico Fraga-Matos.

“I always ask the agent’s opinion,” he said. “They tend to know the area well and how one suburb compares with the next, how this street is next to the others, and whether it’s in the best location for the price that’s being asked.”

3. What are the neighbours like?

Phillips Pantzer Donnelley principal May Anne Cronin just sold her next-door neighbour’s house and the whole neighbourhood turned out for the farewell drinks. “It was lovely seeing all that neighbourliness,” she said.

“And it makes you realise, all over again, how important good neighbours are to the quality of your life. You need to work out if you’ll be living with people like you, or whether they won’t suit you.

“For instance, if you’re a hipster, you don’t want to be surrounded by mums and dads and kids. But if you’re a parent, then you’ll want to know there are other kids around, that your kids will like the area, and that there’ll be willing childminders around!”

4. Have the owners done any renovations lately?

Checking how much a property last sold for may be misleading as to its current value if, for example, $1 million worth of rebuilding work has been done in the interim. You need to find this out to have a better sense of its correct price, advises Finderskeepers property consultants’ Lisa Bradley.

“You also need to make sure any work has been council-approved, and well done, and whether there are still any warranties [that are] valid,” she said.

It may also be worth asking the agent if there are any development applications in the area that might affect the property, says Bradley, perhaps potentially blocking views or overshadowing. But make sure to independently verify that with the local council.

5. How much do the vendors really want?

Of course, the agent may choose not to answer or, if a property is up for auction, say that they’re waiting to see what the market says, explains EPS Property Search director Patrick Bright.

“It’s always worth having the conversation,” he says. “How do you know whether it’s worth bidding on if you don’t know whether it’s within your budget?”

“When they finally tell you, respond with ‘How much?!’ and then fall silent, and leave them to justify it. That can be very telling!”

It’s also good to find out how motivated a vendor is to sell. If, for example, they’ve already bought another home and are looking to move soon, and need to the money for their own house sale to pay for their purchase, then you’ll know you have more negotiating power.

While you can ask the agent that, however, Bright says you never know if you’re going to receive a straight answer. “Sometimes an agent will volunteer that information to motivate the purchaser, and they might not say otherwise.

“But you can always follow up by asking if they would accept a pre-auction offer.”

6. Could you provide a list of comparable sales from the last three months?

This could either validate the price they’re asking – or show it up as completely unrealistic. “Either way, that can be valuable,” says Matthew Smythe of Belle Property Neutral Bay.

“It could give you confidence to make a good offer for the property, or convince you that you should walk away.”