Agent Advice

How to generate listings from buyer appointments

Andrew Duncan

16 Jun 2025 — 8 min read

Grab a coffee, put your phone on silent and take a few moments to work on your business. You deserve it!

This guide is available in written or audio form. Scroll down to keep reading, or click here to listen online, or search 'Agent Monday' on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or any popular podcast app to hear it while you're out driving or taking a walk.

In this type of market, where listings can be hard to shift, it's easy to fall into the trap of hoping that every viewing appointment will produce that ideal buyer we've been waiting for.

If you have a frustrated vendor breathing down your neck, it's understandable that you'd be hanging out to secure some interest and maybe even an offer.

Unfortunately, this sale-focused mindset can stop us from seeing the true potential of every buyer interaction, which is:

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Buyer appointments are opportunities to build client for life relationships.

A key concept I learned early in my career was:

There is nothing I can say to you that will make you want to buy a home you don't want to buy.

I can only help you buy a home you already want to buy.

Therefore, we can stop trying to sell people on buying our listings and instead focus on building relationships that lead to future listings and referrals.

If the buyer likes the home and wants to buy it, that process will largely take care of itself. Your job was to find a way to get them there in the first place, and you've done that!

We all know buyers can sense desperation, but they can also sense when you are simply more focused on selling the home than you are on learning about them.

Once we remove the 'will they buy it' pressure from the appointment, it puts buyers at ease and allows them to truly open up about their situation.

From there, we can truly start to qualify buyers and uncover the hidden gems (appraisals) waiting to be found.

Questions to qualify buyers

Naturally, we need a way to work out who the serious buyers are so we can focus more time on them. And that comes down to asking the right questions:

Have you seen anything you've liked out there?
How long have you been looking?

Good conversation starters. If they've been looking 3+ months and haven't seen anything they like, then what they are after possibly doesn't exist. Or at the very least, it'll be hard to find!

Conversely, if they have seen homes they liked, how did it go? If they have made offers on other properties, it's a good sign they are motivated and ready to go.

How soon do you need to buy?

Any buyer with a deadline is an A-buyer.

If you found the right home today, what would you do?

Are they in a position to buy now? Do they have finance approved and a support team in place (solicitor, etc)?

Have you had an appraisal on your current home? How recent was that?

If buyers have already had an appraisal, remind them that the market is moving quickly, so a 2 month old appraisal might already be out of date.

Steady on, soldier

Bear in mind, you shouldn't jump straight into qualifying questions when the buyer walks in the door. You need to put them at ease and build trust first.

Do this by showing up on time (or early), and provding quality information for the home they are viewing. Let them explore the home without being chaperoned (no one needs you to tell them it's a bedroom), and let them know you are there if they need you. Once the buyer realises you won't be hounding them for a sale, you can start a conversation and work those qualifying questions into your discussion.

What next?

A buyers - Have a deadline to move by, or have made other offers, or have a quality house to sell.

B buyers - Keen to buy but have a challenging list of 'wants', don't have a deadline or are making offers far below market value.

C buyers - They are still in the research phase and don't show a lot of urgency.

Keep a list of all your A-buyers and follow up with them regularly. Keep the group at a manageable size (15- 20 contacts, perhaps) so you can ideally phone them at least once a week to check in. Let them know when one of your colleagues lists a home that might be suitable. You might even call them about a competitors listing just to be helpful.

Remember, the goal here is not necessarily to sell them a home. The goal is to become their real estate salesperson for life. To be the person they sell through in 3 years time when they have a job change, a marriage breakup, or need more space. To be the person they refer all their family and friends to because you were so unlike every other real estate agent they met.

If you end up selling them a home, that's a bonus.

In real estate, we get rewarded for playing the long game. For embracing delayed gratification. And with that in mind, I want to encourage you to think of each visit as an opportunity to meet a future seller in your marketplace. It's common knowledge that sellers often list with the salesperson who provided them with the best service when they were going through the buying process, especially if that salesperson has kept in touch during the intervening period of time.

What about everyone else?

Here is the real kicker:

Potential vendors present like C-buyers.

We've all been told that future sellers often head along to open homes and book viewing appointments to research the market and size up potential salespeople they are considering hiring.

The challenge is, when these high-value clients come through a viewing or open home, they probably won't show any interest, will leave reasonably quickly, may be secretive and in many ways will come across like an unmotivated, time-wasting C-buyer.

And yet, these are the people we most want to connect with.

Worse still, most salespeople have no process in place to keep in touch effectively with this type of client. We all get busy working with the motivated buyers who are making a decision in the not too distant future and forget about the rest.

4 strategies to find the diamonds in the rough

Obviously, we don't have time to treat every C-buyer like a potential vendor. You can only make so many calls in a day. So here are four simple, effective strategies you can use to generate more listings from your buyer appointments:

1. Vendor signal giveaways

At your listing, have printed handouts available that will be of interest to future sellers. For example, have copies of our 41-Step preparing for sale checklist, or a printed copy of one of our content club articles targeting sellers. Great examples for this use case include: 5 things to know before selling your home, there are only 3 reasons why a property doesn't sell, or how to sell your home for the best possible price.

If your visitor picks up one of these handouts and starts reading it, that's a surefire sign they have a home to sell!

2. Call every visitor once a property sells

"Hey, we met at 76 Smith St 5 weeks ago, I'm calling to let you know that home ended up selling in the mid $800's. I just thought you might be interested to know. By the way, how are you getting on? How is your search going?"

Most salespeople skip this step, but it's a fantastic way to find future sellers, impress clients in your marketplace, and foster client-for-life relationships.

I know, I know, not another plug for email newsletters! But I'm telling you, this is what they were built for. You should focus on the clients making real estate decisions now, and let your email newsletter take care of everyone else until they are ready to make a move.

Throughout my career I received countless emails with a message like:

"Hey Andrew, we've been on your email list since we visited one of your open homes 3 years ago. We are now thinking of selling, would you be able to give us an idea of what our place might be worth?"

4. Have a long-term keep in touch list

Any time you come across a contact who shows the slightest signal that they might be a potential vendor, add them to a keep in touch list in your database and phone them every few weeks to check in.

"Hey Jim, we met 3 weeks ago when you came through 86 Main Road, I've been meaning to check in to see how your search is going? Have you seen anything you've liked lately? How are you finding the market right now?"

If they turn out to be an actual C-buyer then you don't need to keep calling them that often, but what you will find is that potential sellers will start to open up after the 2nd or 3rd contact and invite you over for an appraisal. Many sellers want to go on a few dates before they commit. They need to know they can trust you first.

Now that I've (hopefully) sold you on playing the long game with buyers. Check out our guide on how to turn all those trademe emails into future listings: