30 Questions Buyers Ask Real Estate Agents on Calls (and How to Answer Them)

The shape of a good answer

Most strong answers on a buyer call have the same three parts. First the direct answer, in the buyer’s terms: the number, the date, yes or no. Then one fact that makes it concrete, such as the room size, the floor or what’s included. Then the next step, if there is one: “I’ll send you the plan,” “Shall we look at 7A too?”

Compare “It’s quite spacious, around 85 metres” with “86 m² built, the second bedroom is 14.2, so a double bed fits.” The second answer takes the same three seconds and sounds like someone who knows the building. It also needs the floor plan in front of you, and almost every question below can be answered from a file you already have.

All 30 questions at a glance

And the file that answers each one.

Price and what it includes

Price questions come first and come back at the end. Buyers compare you with every other listing they’ve seen this week, so the number has to be exact, and so does what’s inside it.

The unit itself: size, layout, light

These are the questions agents most often answer with “I’ll check and send it to you.” They’re also the easiest to have ready, because the answers are on the floor plan.

The building, the developer and the timeline

Off-plan buyers are buying something that doesn’t exist yet. Their questions here are about risk, and the answers should be specific, dated and documented.

Payment plans and mortgages

Once a buyer asks how to pay, they’re seriously considering the unit. Answer precisely and in their numbers, not as percentages they have to work out themselves.

Running costs after the purchase

Experienced buyers also ask what the place will cost them every year after they buy it. If you can answer these, you sound like someone who has done this before.

The area

Area questions are where you can show you know the place, beyond the listing.

The buying process and buying from abroad

These questions come from buyers who are close to a decision. A clear, numbered answer moves them forward.

When you don’t know the answer

It will happen, and how you handle it matters more than the gap itself. Don’t guess a number. A wrong price or a wrong handover date said on a call is remembered, repeated to a partner and brought up again at the contract.

Say what you know, name what you’ll check and give a time: “The service charge for the two-bedrooms is around €140; I’ll confirm the exact figure for 12B with the developer and message you by five.” Then send it before five. Buyers forgive “I’ll check” once; they stop forgiving it when the follow-up never comes.

The files that answer most of these questions

Look at the “Have ready” lines above and the same few documents keep coming back. If you work on new developments, these are worth an hour of preparation per project.

The price list matters most. Keep it as one table with one row per unit: unit, floor, bedrooms, built and usable area, orientation, outdoor area, parking, storage, price, status and handover. A spreadsheet saved as CSV works well. Keep one current version and delete the old ones, because an outdated price list is worse than none.

Next come the floor plans, one per unit or unit type, with room areas and orientation marked. Then the payment plan, ideally worked out in euros for each unit, and the specification sheet listing what’s included. A purchase cost sheet for your region, checked by a lawyer, covers taxes and fees. The developer’s track record and construction schedule answer the risk questions. And an area sheet with distances to schools, transport and the airport covers the rest.

Add one more document that most agents never write down: your own best answers to the awkward questions, such as “Is the price negotiable?” or “What if it’s delayed?” Written once and checked with the developer, they stop you improvising under pressure.

The work is front-loaded. You fill in this data once per development, and after that every call starts with the right answers already in front of you: the price of each unit, its area, the payment schedule, the costs on top. When the developer changes a price or a date, you update one file instead of remembering which buyers you told what. A new agent on the team gets the same answers on day one.

Answering buyers in another language

Many new-build buyers are international, and the call may switch between English and the buyer’s language, or between two languages you both half-speak. Numbers are where this goes wrong: “fifteen” and “fifty” sound close on a bad line, and square metres turn into square feet in the buyer’s head.

Say the important numbers twice, in two forms if it helps: “€385,000, three hundred eighty-five thousand euros.” Convert areas when the buyer thinks in square feet (86 m² is about 926 sq ft). Then send every figure in writing after the call, in the buyer’s language where you can, so nothing depends on what was heard.

How Realtimer helps with these questions on the call

Knowing where the answer is still means finding it while the buyer waits. Realtimer is a small Mac app that sits next to your call in Zoom, WhatsApp, Teams or any other app and hears both sides. When the buyer asks about 12B’s second bedroom or the parking, you press a key and the answer appears in about a second, taken from your own price list, floor plans and documents, with the file it came from. You add those files once; from then on every call uses the current version, so the answer you give is the one in your price list today.

For prices it’s stricter: it shows exactly the row for the unit being discussed, and checks every number in the answer against that row. It never joins the call as a bot, and the window stays hidden when you share your screen. It runs on Mac only for now. There are built-in call briefs for a first call with a new buyer and for helping a buyer choose a unit. See Realtimer for real estate agents or try it free for 7 days.

Buyer questions for real estate agents: FAQ