How to Choose a Real Estate Agent You Can Trust  | The Questions Every Seller Should Ask in 2026

Real estate agents rank at -22% on the Roy Morgan Trust Index. That places them below politicians. Below used car salespeople. Below almost every profession most people would hesitate to criticise out loud.  🔗 https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/9286-trust-and-distrust-in-the-real-estate-industry

That number is not a blip. It is the accumulated result of thousands of sellers who felt pressured, thousands of buyers who felt misled, and countless transactions where someone walked away wondering whether the person they hired had actually been working for them at all.

If you are preparing to sell your home in 2026, there is a reasonable chance you are already cautious. Maybe you have had a bad experience. Maybe someone close to you has. Maybe you have simply done enough research to understand that the difference between a good agent and a poor one is not a matter of personality,  it can be a matter of tens of thousands of dollars, lost quietly and without explanation.

That caution is not a problem. It is the right instinct.

Choosing a real estate agent without really getting to know them first is a bit like getting married after a first date, except this person then has control of your single largest financial asset for the next 60 to 90 days.

This article does not ask you to trust the industry. It asks you to understand it well enough to make a genuinely informed decision before you sign anything.

Why Don’t People Trust Real Estate Agents?

Real estate agents have a measurable trust problem,  and much of it is structural, not just individual.

The -22% Roy Morgan Trust Index figure is not a rounding error. It reflects a consistent pattern that most sellers only fully understand once they have been through a sale. The problem begins with how agents are selected in the first place. Most sellers choose an agent based on brand recognition, a letterbox drop, or a recommendation from someone who used them years ago. Very few interview more than one agent. Almost none ask the questions that would actually reveal whether that agent is the right fit for their specific circumstances.

The core conflict of interest is rarely disclosed upfront. An agent earns their commission when the property sells. The faster it sells, the sooner they move to the next listing. The financial incentive is weighted toward transaction speed, not necessarily toward the best possible outcome for the seller. In most cases a quick sale and a strong sale are the same thing,  but when they diverge, a seller needs to know whose interest their agent is actually serving.

The red flags that matter most are rarely obvious at the listing presentation. They emerge during the campaign: vague marketing plans that never translate into a genuine strategy, early pressure to reduce the asking price before the market has been properly tested, open home feedback that seems designed to soften expectations rather than report honestly, and fees buried in the agency agreement that were never raised in conversation.

Many of the larger franchised and corporate agencies operate on a GCI (Gross Commission Income) regime — a structure where an agent’s personal commission split is directly tied to how much revenue they push through the business within a set timeframe. The faster and more frequently they transact, the better their personal income. The business model itself can therefore create a financial incentive for agents to close deals quickly, rather than hold firm for the best possible outcome for the seller. The corporate machine is fed by volume. The seller’s result can become a byproduct of that pressure rather than the primary objective. This is not true of every individual within those systems — but every seller deserves to understand the structural incentive before they sign.

What Does Choosing the Wrong Real Estate Agent Actually Cost You?

Choosing the wrong real estate agent can cost a seller far more than the commission, it can cost them the gap between what their property was worth and what it actually sold for.

This is the concept of transactional leakage: the invisible money that drains from a sale through poor marketing, weak negotiation, lazy presentation advice, and pricing errors. It does not happen in one moment. It happens across multiple stages of the selling process, often long before the final negotiation begins, and most sellers never realise how much was lost along the way.

What Is Transactional Leakage in Real Estate?

Transactional leakage refers to the gradual loss of negotiating power and sale price that occurs throughout the selling process, not just at the end of it. There are seven distinct points in a property transaction where value can leak away from the seller.

The first is the initial conversation between seller and agent. If a seller’s personal circumstances, their timeline, their financial pressure, their reasons for selling, are not held in strict confidence, buyers will find out. And once a buyer knows a seller must move quickly, they adjust their offer accordingly. Tens of thousands of dollars can be lost through a single careless disclosure.

The second is the campaign setup. Once a listing agreement is signed, many agents hand the critical work, photography briefs, marketing copy, portal strategy to junior staff or administrators who were not present in the original seller conversation and do not understand the strategy behind it. When that happens, the campaign is compromised before a single buyer has seen the property.

The third is open home management. Open homes are not routine events. They are live negotiation intelligence. Every interaction with a potential buyer shapes how that buyer perceives value. Agents who delegate open homes to junior representatives lose critical information and signal weak campaign management to observant buyers.

The fourth is the valuation stage. When a buyer purchases with finance, their lender requires an independent valuation. If that valuation comes in below the agreed price, renegotiation begins. A skilled agent attends the valuation and provides context, comparable sales, campaign data, the number of competing buyers that a valuer relying solely on historical records cannot see.

The fifth is the building and pest inspection. Inspection reports are written by professionals protecting themselves legally, which means they can read as alarming even when the issues are minor. An agent who is not present at the inspection cannot protect the seller from those findings being used as a renegotiation tool.

The sixth is marketing and negotiation preparation. Marketing is not advertising. Advertising places a property in front of an audience. Marketing is the strategic process of positioning a property so that buyers compete. Weak marketing creates pressure on the seller. Strong marketing creates pressure between buyers.

The seventh is the final negotiation itself. An independent study once surveyed thousands of property buyers after purchase and asked one question: would you have paid more? Approximately 88% said yes. The reason they did not? They were never asked. Poor negotiation  accepting the first serious offer without testing whether the market will produce more is one of the most common and most costly failures in a property transaction.

Does Your Agent Understand Transactional Leakage?

Before you sign with any agent, ask them directly whether they understand transactional leakage and whether they can walk you through the specific points in a transaction where value is at risk. If they cannot answer that question clearly and specifically if the concept is unfamiliar to them, or if they respond with vague commentary about managing the process that is not a minor gap in their knowledge. It means they are likely an active contributor to the problem rather than a defence against it. An agent who does not understand where leakage occurs cannot protect you from it.

What Is Under-Pricing Through Lazy Price-Guiding?

Most agents build a price estimate from a narrow data set: recent comparable sales and current listings. They rarely account for broader context  buyer demand pressure at that particular moment, interest rate sentiment, demographic shifts, or competitive supply dynamics.

The deeper issue is that most agents do not explain or do not fully understand, that a listed price is a search tool. Buyers search property portals by price brackets. Where a price is set determines which buyers find the property and which ones never see it. A price is also an anchoring tool — it sets the psychological starting point for how buyers perceive value and approach the negotiation.

When an agent removes the price entirely, listing a property as “contact agent” or “POA,” they eliminate both functions at once. Buyer enquiry drops, and the critical negotiation anchor disappears. That is not a neutral choice. It is a decision that demonstrably affects both reach and outcome.

What Is the Listing Trap?

The listing trap is one of the most common and least discussed practices in real estate. An agent wins the listing by quoting the seller an inflated price estimate. Once the property is on the market and weeks pass without a result, the agent begins systematically conditioning the seller to accept less. The high initial price was never a genuine assessment, it was a tool to win the business. The price reduction conversation was always the plan.

The commission is the smallest financial risk of choosing the wrong agent. The real cost is the gap between what your property could have sold for and what it actually did.

How Do I Find a Real Estate Agent I Can Trust?

The most reliable way to find a real estate agent you can trust is to stop choosing based on who you have heard of, and start choosing based on how they answer hard questions, and whether they are willing to be held accountable for the answers.

Here is how we approach it at Gold Coast Real Estate Agents, and what we believe every seller should be able to expect from any agent they consider.

Negotiation Begins With the Very First Conversation

Most people assume negotiation happens at the end of a campaign, when offers are on the table. It does not. Negotiation begins in the very first conversation between agent and seller.

That conversation is where the strategy is built, not around the property, but around the seller. Their specific desired outcome, their timeline, their personal circumstances, and what a successful result genuinely looks like for them. Every decision that follows — how the property is priced, how it is presented to the market, how buyers are qualified, how offers are structured and sequenced, flows from that original understanding.

An agent who treats the first conversation as a listing pitch has already lost sight of what the job actually is. The job is to understand what the seller needs and to build a campaign specifically designed to deliver it, whilst achieving the strongest possible price the market will produce.

Maximum Market Exposure Is What Drives Price

The size of the buyer pool determines the ceiling of the sale price. The more qualified buyers who see a property, the greater the competitive tension and competitive tension is what produces a strong result at negotiation.

We market every property across the two platforms where serious, active buyers search first: realestate.com.au and Domain. These are not optional. They are where the best buyers are, buyers who are ready to act, who have done their research, and who have committed to a fixed idea of what they want to pay. Those are exactly the buyers a seller wants competing for their property.

We also market through Elevate, our own proprietary platform, which reaches buyers at the top of the marketing funnel, people who are in the early stages of considering a move but have not yet narrowed down to a specific suburb or property type. Elevate puts your property in front of that audience before they have formed fixed ideas about value, which is precisely when price ceilings are most moveable.

What we do not do is rely on a recycled database as a primary sales strategy. Anyone sitting in a real estate database for more than 30 days is statistically more likely to be a prospective seller than a ready buyer. Their circumstances have changed, their urgency has passed, or they have already purchased elsewhere. Selling a property to a database contact without first exposing it to the full market removes the competitive tension that drives price. Every eye that does not see your property is a potential offer that was never made.

No Lock-In Contracts

A lock-in contract is an agency agreement that legally binds a seller to an agent for a fixed period, often 60 to 90 days regardless of performance. Breaking the agreement early can trigger financial penalties.

We do not operate with lock-in clauses. If we are not performing, you should be free to walk away. Our continued involvement in your sale should be earned every single week, not enforced by a legal agreement that makes leaving difficult or expensive.

Transparent Fees — No Surprises

Our fees are explained in full before you sign anything. If marketing costs are passed through to you, we explain exactly what they cover, who provides them, and why each element contributes to the outcome. There are no administration fees, no hidden charges, and no exit penalties if we are not performing.

Honest, Consistent Communication

After every open home, you receive a direct report: attendance numbers, quality of interest, honest buyer feedback, and our assessment of where the campaign stands. We do not soften feedback to manage your expectations. We tell you what we observed and what it means for the next step.

We Get to Know You Before You Commit to Us

Before we accept a listing, we sit down with you for a genuine conversation about your goals, your timeline, your personal circumstances, and the outcome you need. This is not a listing pitch. It is a strategy session, and it is yours at no cost and with no obligation.

No responsible agent should accept a listing without understanding the person behind it. And no seller should sign an agreement without genuinely understanding the agent they are trusting with their most significant asset.

What Questions Should I Ask a Real Estate Agent Before I Sign Anything?

Before signing with any real estate agent, every seller should ask a minimum of eight specific questions and pay close attention not just to the answers, but to whether the agent welcomes the questions at all.

Most people spend more time researching a dishwasher purchase than evaluating the person they are about to entrust with their largest asset. That needs to change.

Ask these questions of any agent you are considering, including us:

1. Can you explain transactional leakage and walk me through the specific points in a transaction where value is at risk? If an agent cannot answer this question clearly and specifically, that is your answer.
2. Can you show me three or four results where the outcome was genuinely shaped by how you ran the campaign, ideally with a short video or written testimonial from the seller describing what their biggest fear was going in, and how you handled it?
3. What is your specific marketing plan for this property, not your general process, but the actual plan, including which platforms you will use and why?
4. What is your complete fee structure, including any third-party marketing costs, administration fees, or charges that could apply at any point?
5. Do you operate with a lock-in contract? If so, what are the exit terms and what happens if I am not satisfied?
6. Who will be handling my property day-to-day, you personally, or someone on your team?
7. If you receive one offer and the buyer tells you it is their best and final — what do you do next?
8. What is your approach to price-setting, and do you believe in listing with a price or without one?

You do not need a wall of sold stickers. You need to see three or four moments where something got difficult, and how your agent handled it. That tells you everything a list of prices cannot.

Bring these questions to us. We welcome every one of them.

Selling Your Home Is Not Just a Transaction

The right real estate agent is not just someone who lists your home, they are someone who understands the weight of what you are doing and acts in your interest even when that is uncomfortable.

Selling a home is rarely a purely financial event. It is usually tied to something larger, a growing family moving on, a loss that requires a difficult decision, a relocation, a chapter closing and another beginning. The right agent understands that context. They understand that the person on the other side of the conversation is not simply a vendor. They are a person making one of the most significant decisions of their life, and they deserve an agent who treats it that way.

That understanding shows up in practical ways. It means telling you the truth about your property’s presentation when the truth is unwelcome. It means holding firm when a buyer applies pressure instead of passing that pressure on to you. It means protecting your position at every stage of the transaction, through the open homes, the inspection, the valuation, and every week in between.

Trust is not declared. It is not assumed. It is built through consistency, honesty, and results, one conversation, one campaign, and one outcome at a time.

Ready to Ask the Hard Questions?

If you are thinking about selling? whether your timeline is six weeks or six months, we would welcome a conversation.

Bring the questions from above. Add any others you have been sitting on. Ask us anything about our fees, our marketing approach, our negotiation philosophy, our understanding of transactional leakage, or our results. There is no obligation, no pressure, and no lock-in.

We would rather earn your trust over one honest conversation than assume it because you called us first.

Contact Gold Coast Real Estate Agents to arrange a no-obligation strategy session at a time that suits you.