How to tell in three questions whether a buyer can actually buy

The answer, straight away

A buyer is qualified with three questions, asked before anybody is let into a client's home: what they have bought before, how they intend to structure the purchase, and who else is part of the decision.

A serious person answers all three without taking offence. The other kind becomes vague, and vagueness is already the answer.

First question: what have they bought before

This is not a wealth check. It is understanding whether they have been through this and how.

Somebody who has bought three times knows what happens at completion and is not alarmed. Somebody buying for the first time at that level needs to be accompanied differently, and knowing that changes how you work.

Second question: how do they intend to structure it

Cash, mortgage, sale of another property, a company, funds arriving from abroad.

Each has different timings, and timing is what breaks transactions. A buyer who has to sell first is a real buyer with a chain, and the chain has to be known at the start.

Third question: who else decides

The one almost everybody skips, and the most expensive.

In a couple one person often chooses and the other negotiates. If you spend the viewing talking to the one who negotiates, you spoke to the wrong person. In a family or a company there are several signatures, and whoever was not consulted blocks on principle.

When to ask for proof of means

After those three, when there is a specific property and a viewing date. Never after showing the house.

The formulation that does not offend puts the responsibility where it belongs: the owner asked that viewings happen only with verified buyers, and it applies to everybody.

What happens if you do not qualify

You lose afternoons, and everybody knows that.

What is underestimated is the other cost: you let people into a client's home who had no business being there, and if the owner finds out you have lost far more than an afternoon.

A case

A woman asked for every blind in an apartment to be lowered so she could check each one worked. A whole afternoon, and she did not have the budget.

That apartment was sold to a financial adviser who never touched a blind, because what he wanted was the terrace.