What a Good Agent Does That a Bad One Does Not

The first fortnight tells you most of what you need to know

Everything an agent does in the opening two weeks is discretionary. There is no buyer to react to yet, no offer to relay, nothing forcing their hand — so what happens in that window is a clean read on how they work rather than on how busy they are.

A working agent front-loads it. They come to the property and measure or photograph it themselves rather than asking you to send pictures. They ask for the title document and the building’s contact details on day one, because they intend to check things before a buyer does. They tell you which portals the listing is going on and when it will actually be live, and then it is live when they said. Somewhere in that fortnight they also come back to you with something you would rather not hear — a room that photographs badly, a price that the last two sales in the building do not support, a lease term a buyer will ask about.

The pattern in the other direction is just as recognisable. The listing goes up from your own phone photographs, sometimes cropped, occasionally with the previous owner’s furniture still in them. The description is three lines assembled from the developer’s brochure. Nobody has visited. Nobody has asked for a single document. And the first contact you have after signing is a fortnight later, initiated by you.

Neither pattern is really about effort or personality. It follows from whether the agent has decided this particular property is worth their working week, and that decision is made in the first few days, silently, and is rarely revisited.

What should reach you without being asked for

Chasing is the symptom people report, but it is worth being precise about what a good agent sends unprompted, because the list is short and you can hold any agent to it.

• A written update at a fixed interval, on a day you can predict, whether or not anything happened. The one that says "no viewings this fortnight, here is why I think that is, here is what I am changing" is more valuable than the one full of activity.
• Feedback after every viewing, in writing, within a day or two while the buyer still remembers.
• Notice before anything changes. A price adjustment, a new set of photographs, a different portal — proposed to you first, with a reason, not discovered by you later.
• What comparable properties in your building or street have actually done. Not the asking prices, which anyone can read off a portal, but what completed and when.
• Anything they have found in the paperwork, as soon as they find it, rather than at the point it blocks a sale.
• A named person to reach, who answers, and who tells you when they will be away.

Viewing feedback is the clearest single tell

If you only watch one thing, watch what comes back after viewings, because it cannot be faked by an agent who was not paying attention.

Useful feedback is specific and it is usually mildly unflattering. The buyer thought the second bedroom was smaller than the floor plan suggested. They liked the unit and are comparing it against two others on a lower floor of the same building. They were put off by the view onto the service block, which is the third time that has come up. They asked about the monthly common-area charge and went quiet afterwards. Each of those tells you something you can act on: reshoot, reprice, prepare an answer, or accept that a particular objection is structural and price around it.

Useless feedback is a mood. "They liked it." "Nice couple, we will see." "Still thinking about it." Repeated across several viewings, that means one of two things — the agent is not asking, or the viewings are not happening as described. Both are worth knowing.

The most informative pattern is a run of viewings with the same objection. That is the market telling you something precise, and it is the moment a good agent comes back and says the price or the presentation has to change. An agent who relays four versions of "they are thinking about it" over two months is not managing a sale; they are forwarding your property to people and reporting the weather.

A good agent will argue with you about the price

This is the one that costs sellers the most, and it is the hardest to see as a positive at the time.

An agent who agrees with your price immediately, whatever you name, has not necessarily agreed with it. Taking a listing costs them very little; talking you out of a number costs them an uncomfortable conversation and possibly the instruction to a competitor who will not have it. So the path of least resistance is to sign, market it at your figure, wait for the market to say no on their behalf, and then have the conversation months later when you are tired and the listing has gone stale on every portal it appears on.

What good looks like is uncomfortable and early. They bring you what actually completed nearby, not what is currently being asked. They are clear about which of those are genuinely comparable to your unit and which are not — floor, aspect, size, condition, and whether the sale was to a domestic or an overseas buyer, which in some buildings changes what is achievable. They give you a position and defend it. And if you decide on a higher figure anyway, which is entirely your right, they say plainly what they expect to happen and agree a date at which you will both look again.

A stale listing is a real cost, not a neutral one. Buyers watching a building notice a unit that has been sitting, portals rank fresh listings above old ones, and the eventual price after a long public reduction is often worse than the honest number would have been at the start. An agent who protects you from that is doing the part of the job you are actually paying for.

The paperwork they deal with before a buyer asks

Most sales that collapse late collapse on something that was knowable at the beginning. The distinguishing habit of a good agent is that they go looking for it in week one, while it is an inconvenience, rather than meeting it in the final fortnight when it is a crisis and the buyer is already nervous.

The specifics vary with the property, but the shape is the same: confirm who is actually on the title and that the document matches what is being sold; establish with the juristic person that the unit is clear of outstanding charges and can be issued the certificate the Land Office will want; find out where a condominium building stands on foreign ownership if that is relevant to who can buy it; identify anything unusual about the ownership structure, an outstanding mortgage, or a co-owner who is not in the country. None of this is difficult. It is simply work that produces nothing visible, which is why the agents who skip it are not obviously idle.

You will not necessarily see this happening, so ask once, early: what have you checked, and did anything come back that we should deal with now? A good agent has an answer immediately, because they did it. A poor one will tell you it is handled at the end by the lawyers, which is true only in the sense that the problem will indeed be discovered then.

The related guide on the documents needed to sell sets out what these actually are, and the guide on choosing an agent covers how to ask about it before you sign.

Who they are actually working for when an offer arrives

An offer is where the incentives diverge most sharply, because almost any completed sale pays the agent more than a long negotiation that might fail. The pull towards persuading you to accept is real, and it is not evidence of dishonesty — it is the arrangement.

What good conduct looks like here is a straight account rather than a recommendation dressed as fact. The offer, in writing. Who the buyer is in the ways that matter: are they funded, is finance involved, are they buying from abroad and therefore dependent on a transfer arriving in the right form, have they sold something else first, and how quickly do they want to complete. What the agent thinks is achievable and why. What the risk is of pushing. Then the decision left with you.

The version to be wary of is pressure without information: another party is interested, this is the best you will see, the market is turning. Any of those can be true. All of them are unverifiable, and an agent who reaches for them repeatedly rather than showing you the position is managing you rather than the sale.

One specific thing to settle before it happens, if it is not already in your agreement: what occurs if a buyer approaches you directly. It comes up more often than people expect, particularly in buildings where neighbours talk, and it is a much easier conversation before there is money attached to the answer.

If you recognise your own agent in the wrong column

Recognising it is most of the work. What you can do about it depends on what you signed, and the honest answer is that your options are wider than most sellers assume.

Start by asking for the thing rather than the explanation. A written update covering viewings held, enquiries received and what is planned for the next fortnight is a reasonable request from any seller, and how it is received tells you a great deal. An agent who was quiet because they were busy sends it. An agent who was quiet because nothing has been happening will produce a phone call about market conditions instead.

If you are on an open listing, you are not committed to anyone, and the useful move is usually not to add a seventh agent — it is to work with whichever one has actually been sending you feedback and to give them a reason to invest. If you are inside a sole agency, look at the term and at whether it contains a break clause; the guide on exclusive versus open listings sets out which clauses make that possible and what to insist on next time.

And if the term simply has to run, set the terms of the remainder in writing now: the reporting interval, what marketing will change, and the date you will both review the price. An agent who was going to work anyway will accept all three without difficulty. One who will not has told you what to do when the agreement expires.