Most agents answer the question "should I sell?" with an appraisal. After thirty-five years and more than a thousand sales across the Eastern Suburbs, I answer it differently. The quiz reflects how I actually advise vendors — and every question in it is there for a reason.
The quiz scores you on two dimensions. Your personal readiness carries 60% of the weight. The market carries 40%. That split is deliberate, and it runs against most of what you read.
Here is the logic. You can't control the market. You can control your reasons, your timing, your finances and your next move. The vendors who do well are the ones who sell because their life calls for it — and then use the market intelligently. The vendors who struggle are the ones who sell because the market looked good, without a plan for what comes next.
A good market can't rescue a sale that shouldn't happen. A soft market rarely sinks one that should.
Six of the eleven questions are about you, not the market. Each one maps to a point where I've watched sales succeed or stall.
Your reason shapes the entire strategy. A downsizer, a growing family and an estate sale need three different campaigns. "The market looks good" isn't a strategy — it's a headline.
Your next move is where more sales come undone than anywhere else. Selling well means knowing where you're going. If you don't, the sale and the purchase have to be managed as one move — which is a service in itself.
Timeframe, finances, household agreement and emotional readiness are the quiet factors. None of them appear in a price guide. All of them decide whether a campaign runs clean or runs ragged.
The market still matters — 40% is not nothing. But notice what the quiz asks about. Not "will prices go up?" Nobody knows. It asks about the things that are knowable right now.
Comparable sales — and critically, when each one sold. A result from a different phase of the cycle is a different market. This is the "understanding the landscape" work I do before any price conversation.
Competition — how many similar homes are for sale near you right now. Buyers compare. Your result depends partly on what you're standing next to.
Buyer's market or seller's market — your read of conditions sets your pricing, your patience and your timeframe. In a seller's market the work is managing competition. In a buyer's market, buyers take their time and negotiate harder; pricing and presentation carry the result.
Presentation — the one market lever entirely in your hands.
One market question surprises people: are you selling and buying in the same market? If you are, the cycle largely cancels itself out. Sell for less, buy for less. Sell for more, pay more. Waiting for the "right" market only matters when you're leaving the market, or moving into a very different one. For most Eastern Suburbs vendors moving locally, the right time is when your life is ready — which is exactly why the quiz weighs it that way.
The single most common misunderstanding I meet: vendors plan from the day they want to move, not the day they need to decide. So the quiz ends with the real process, stage by stage.
Two weeks of preparation before a single buyer sees the home. One to six weeks on the market — stretching in a buyer's market, compressing in a seller's. Then four to six weeks from exchange to settlement. Seven to fourteen weeks, end to end. If you need to be moved by Christmas, the decision was due in September. The quiz exists so you discover that in two minutes, not two months too late.
The percentage isn't a verdict on your home. It's a measure of how much groundwork stands between you and a strong sale.
Notice the quiz will tell you not to sell. An agent who only ever says "list now" isn't advising you — he's prospecting you.
Two minutes for the score. One conversation to turn it into a plan — your reasons, your timing, your next move, then a campaign built around them. No obligation.
Selling with WeissAlan Weiss0412 176 074alan@weissrealestate.com.au
