Small habits build better conversations
Open-ended questions, attentive listening and thoughtful follow-up can help real estate agents build trust before difficult discussions about pricing and offers.
Real estate professionals can build stronger connections with customers by approaching everyday conversations with more curiosity and less emphasis on immediately qualifying someone as a prospect.
Rather than asking what someone does for a living, agents can ask what they’re excited about working on. Open-ended questions that invite people to share experiences can reveal more than routine questions about work, buying timelines or representation.
Listening closely to those answers can also give agents useful details to remember and revisit later, whether in a follow-up conversation or a note in their customer relationship management system.
Finding common ground can help build trust, particularly before more difficult discussions about pricing, offers or walking away from a property. Paying attention to changes in a person’s energy or body language can provide clues about what matters most to them.
Agents can also become more comfortable initiating conversations through practice, without expecting every interaction to lead to a connection or future business.
Source: Inman, Oct. 16, 2026, Krys Benyamein
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