For most people selling a home, picking the agent is the call that matters most. Get it right and you've got a sharp negotiator who knows your suburb, finds the right buyers and lands a result you're genuinely chuffed with. Get it wrong and you can end up with an overpriced listing that lingers, goes stale, and finally sells for less than it should have.
The good news is that you can sort the good from the average in one conversation. You just have to ask the right things at the appraisal. Here are the nine I'd put to any agent, and what a straight answer sounds like.
1. What's your average days on market?
Days on market tells you how quickly an agent actually shifts a property. A low number usually means well-priced listings and real buyer interest. A high one can flag over-pricing at launch, lazy marketing, or a thin buyer list.
But context is everything. Some suburbs simply take longer because of who's buying there. So don't just take the figure. Ask the agent to explain what's behind it.
2. How close were your recent sales to the asking price?
This is the tell for pricing and negotiating. You want an agent who lands near the asking price, or above it, again and again. If their sales keep closing well under where they listed, that points to either over-quoting at the start or going soft when it's time to push for the last few thousand.
3. Talk me through how you'd market my place.
A serious agent turns up with a plan built for your property, not a stock slide they show everyone. It should cover the portals, the photography and whether drone and video are included or cost extra, the copy, the launch strategy, and how they'll reach the buyers most likely to actually purchase your home.
Push on the interstate angle. A big slice of Cairns demand flies in, so ask exactly how they reach buyers who aren't local. Do they have referral relationships down south? A database of out-of-town enquiry from past campaigns? Vague answers here are a yellow flag.
4. What price do you recommend, and how did you land on it?
This is the big one. It's also where the games get played.
A proper appraisal is a considered opinion. It rests on recent comparable sales, what the market's doing right now, your home's particular features and where the buyer demand sits. It is not a guaranteed price, and any agent who hints otherwise is having a lend of you.
So ask to see the comps. Go through them with the agent. Do they genuinely stack up against your home? Were they sold recently enough to mean anything in a market that's been moving?
5. What's your commission and how's it structured?
This should be an open conversation, no dancing around it. Find out whether the commission's a flat percentage or tiered, what's included, and how the marketing spend is handled. Then get the lot in writing.
And don't pick on the cheapest rate alone. A better agent who lands a higher price puts more in your pocket even at a higher commission. The fee is only half the equation. The result is the other half.
6. Will you run my campaign, or does it get handed to someone junior?
In a busy office it's common for a senior agent to win the listing and then pass the day-to-day to a junior. That's not automatically a problem if the team's tight and the senior stays hands-on. But you deserve to know who's actually running your open homes, taking the buyer calls and sitting across the table when an offer comes in.
Just ask it plainly. Who am I dealing with, week to week?
7. How do you handle multiple offers?
Negotiation style matters here. Some agents are happy to run buyers against each other to wring out every dollar. Others play it safe. Ask them to walk you through a recent case where they had a few buyers in play and how they managed it. You'll learn a lot about their instincts from the story.
8. What could hold my sale back, and how would you deal with it?
A good agent gives you the unvarnished version. Maybe there's a feature that won't suit every buyer, a presentation issue to fix before launch, or a price expectation that just isn't realistic right now. Be wary of the agent who's sunny about absolutely everything and never names a single risk. That's often someone telling you what you want to hear instead of what you need to know.
9. Can I get two or three references from recent sellers?
Not the testimonials on the website. I mean real vendors whose homes they sold in the last six months, people you can ring or message yourself. Any agent worth their salt has happy clients glad to take the call. If they get cagey about it, that tells you something.
The Red Flag That Costs Vendors the Most: Over-Quoting
The oldest trick in the book is quoting you an inflated price to win the listing, knowing full well it'll have to come down later. It's everywhere in this industry and it's worth understanding before you sit down with anyone.
It works because we all naturally lean toward the agent who says our home's worth the most. Who wouldn't? But the fallout is real. You launch too high, interest fades while the place sits, and you end up selling for less than a realistic, well-run campaign would have got you from day one.
The defence is simple. Ask every agent to show you the comparable sales behind their number. If they can't, or the comps plainly don't support it, treat that as your warning.
A Word on Cairns Specifically
A genuinely local agent should know the things that make this market its own. The dry season advantage and how it flips the usual timing. The way interstate buyers drive the competition. The real differences from one suburb to the next. They should also be properly across the Queensland rules a vendor now has to meet, like the Seller Disclosure Scheme that's applied since 1 August 2025, which means buyers get a disclosure statement and the prescribed certificates before they sign. An agent who treats Cairns like an outpost of Brisbane, or leans on generic national commentary, won't fight hard enough for your result.
If you want the whole process laid out, from prepping the home to settlement day, it's in my Cairns Selling Guide.
The right conversation starts with a current, honest appraisal. Find out what your home is worth, then use the appointment to put these questions to me. You'll know pretty quickly whether you're talking to someone who'll actually graft for your result.