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- Ask every broker the same questions, and ask for the important answers in writing, so you can compare reasoning rather than personalities.
- A good pricing answer shows its inputs: rents, expenses, comparable sales, and how rent-controlled units were treated.
- A good marketing answer names the buyers, the channels, the MLS and its current rules, and how tenants will be handled.
- On the agreement, listen for a calendar end date, a plain commission trigger and a clear way out.
The questions worth asking a listing broker are the ones whose answers you can check. Anyone can promise a high price. What is harder to fake is the path to the number, the buyers the broker plans to pursue, and what the contract they hand you says.
Questions about the price
How did you arrive at this price?
Someone who has done the work can walk you through the inputs. They start from the rent roll you gave them, with market rents entering only as upside. They list the expenses they assumed and flag the ones a buyer will change, such as property taxes, which a sale resets to current market value under Proposition 13. Then they name the sales they compared. Ask how each one differs from your building.
How did you treat the rent-controlled units?
In the City of Los Angeles, the Rent Stabilization Ordinance reaches rental units whose certificate of occupancy dates from October 1, 1978 or earlier, with some exemptions, and LAHD set the allowed yearly increase at 3 percent for the twelve months starting July 1, 2026. Anyone who knows this will explain that a below-market RSO rent becomes upside mainly at turnover, when a tenant leaves by choice or is evicted for not paying, because the rent can then be reset. If every unit in the opinion is priced at market rent, the broker is pricing a different building.
What would make a buyer pay less than this?
Push for specifics, such as deferred repairs, a soft-story retrofit that is not finished, a unit without permits, a laundry contract that cannot be ended, or a price sitting just above a Measure ULA threshold inside the City. Measure ULA taxes the whole price once it passes $5,400,000, and at a higher rate once it reaches $10,900,000, for transfers from July 1, 2026 onward. If the broker cannot name one weakness, ask what they looked at.
Questions about marketing
Who are the likely buyers, and how will you reach them?
Expect categories of buyer that fit a building like yours, such as local investors, buyers finishing a 1031 exchange, or buyers who want value-add work, along with the way the broker reaches each one. If the answer is "we put it everywhere," ask which buyers it reaches that a public listing would not.
Will the listing go into the MLS, and which one?
Get the name of the MLS. Then get its current rules on public marketing, because NAR's 2025 policy lets a seller delay public marketing or keep a listing as an office exclusive with a signed disclosure, each MLS sets its own version, and CRMLS said in 2025 that it would not adopt the delay option. Someone who knows the rules will tell you what you would sign and what it gives up.
What will buyers see, and when?
Listen for a plan covering what goes out before a buyer signs a confidentiality agreement, when the full rent roll and operating statement are released, and how tenant personal information stays out of the file.
How will tours work with tenants in place?
Written notice before each entry should come up without prompting, since Civil Code section 1954 requires reasonable notice and presumes 24 hours is enough. So should grouping tours to limit disruption, and a plan for telling tenants about the sale.
Questions about buyers and offers
- How will you screen buyers? Expect proof of funds, a lender's written terms for a financed buyer, the buyer's record of closing, and any exchange deadline the buyer is working against.
- How will you compare offers? The answer should go past price to the deposit, the length of the inspection period, any financing condition and when escrow would close.
- What do you do when a buyer asks for a credit after inspections? The right answer involves asking for the evidence, pricing the real problem and pushing back where the request is padded.
Questions about the listing agreement
- What type of listing is this, and when does it end? The answer names the type, whether an exclusive right to sell, an exclusive agency or an open listing, and gives a calendar end date. Business and Professions Code section 10176 exposes a licensee to discipline for claiming a commission under an exclusive agreement without a definite, specified termination date.
- When is your commission earned, and what if the buyer walks away? Ask for one plain sentence, and then find the same sentence in the agreement.
- Will you offer compensation to the buyer's broker? Since August 17, 2024, NAR's settlement rules keep those offers off the MLS, so the answer should explain how any offer would be communicated and what it would cost you.
- How do I end this early if it is not working? A reasonable broker has an answer that does not involve a penalty for their own non-performance.
- Do you ever represent both sides? The answer should explain dual agency as California defines it, including two agents at one brokerage, what the broker would keep confidential, and that it is your decision whether to allow it.
Hold each answer up against the matching clause in the listing agreement before you sign, because the clause is what binds you.
Questions about the person
- Who will do the work day to day? Ask for the names. If a senior agent pitches and a junior one runs the sale, you should know that now.
- Who is your responsible broker? Business and Professions Code section 10140.6 requires the licensee's name, license number and responsible broker on first-contact materials, so the answer should match the business card. Then check it on the DRE public license lookup.
- Can I talk to owners you have represented? A broker with a record can give you names to call. Ask those owners what went wrong in their sale and how the broker handled it.
- What do you know about this building's rules? In Los Angeles that means the RSO or the Just Cause Ordinance, LAHD's code inspections, the soft-story retrofit program and the Residential Property Report that City sellers must deliver. Someone who knows the City will say which of those apply to your building and why.
Answers that should worry you
- A price with no math behind it, or one well above every other broker's with no explanation.
- A listing that runs "until sold," or renews on its own.
- Pressure to sign at the first meeting, before you have read the agreement.
- A marketing plan that exists only as conversation.
- Reluctance to put a promise into the agreement.
- Any guarantee of a sale price. The market sets the price, and no broker can promise it.
These questions tell you which broker to hire. What the contract means for you legally is another matter. That is a question for a real estate attorney, and Shaya is not one, so have the attorney read the agreement before you sign.