When to Say No to an Instruction

Every agent starting out takes everything. It feels like the only rational choice: more listings, more chances, more visibility.

Then a year in, the calendar is full and the income is not, and the cause is usually four or five instructions that were never going to sell.

What a bad instruction actually costs

A listing is not a lottery ticket you buy once. It is a recurring cost: photography, the listing itself, portal fees, viewings on evenings and weekends, and the weekly conversation with a seller who is increasingly unhappy that nothing is happening.

It also costs the thing you cannot invoice for: an unsold property, visibly stuck, in the window of your own marketing. Sellers looking for an agent scroll your listings. A property that has obviously been there for months is not neutral evidence.

The four that reliably cost more than they earn

The seller who has already been told a higher number. Someone has won this instruction before by promising a price nobody can achieve. If you match it to compete, you have bought the same problem for six months. The property will eventually sell at close to the real figure — after two agents have been blamed.

The seller who is not actually selling. They want to know what it is worth, or they are testing the market, or one of two owners has not agreed. This is discoverable in one question: "If we get the asking price in three weeks, are you in a position to proceed?" Hesitation is the answer.

The property with a problem nobody will address. A legal issue, an access dispute, a tenant who will not leave, an unapproved extension. You can market this for a year; it will not complete until the problem is fixed. Make fixing it the condition of taking the instruction.

The seller who wants to instruct everyone. In markets where multiple agency is normal this is sometimes unavoidable, but be clear-eyed: you are doing the work with a fractional chance of the fee, and so is everyone else, which is why nobody does the work properly.

How to decline and keep the relationship

Do not decline the person. Decline the price, and put your own number next to it.

I don't think I can get you [their figure] and I'd rather say so now than take it and disappoint you for six months. At [your figure] I'd be confident, and I'd expect interest in the first fortnight. If you'd like to try the higher number with someone else first, I completely understand — and if it hasn't moved by [month], call me and I'll pick it up.

Three things are happening. You have been honest, which is memorable in this business. You have given a specific figure, which makes you credible rather than merely cautious. And you have left the door open with a date on it — a large share of these sellers do come back, and they come back having learned that you were right.

If you have to take it

Sometimes the answer is yes anyway. New agents need instructions; established ones need to keep a relationship.

Take it with a written review: if there are fewer than a specified number of viewings by a specified date, the price moves to a figure you have both already agreed.

Written, specific, agreed in advance. A vague "we'll review in a month" becomes a fresh argument in a month. A pre-agreed trigger converts the conversation from what do you think it's worth — which is opinion against opinion — into what has the market done — which is a fact neither of you can argue with.

What to do with the ones you decline

A declined instruction is not a closed door unless you close it.

Put the property and the date in your list, with the price they wanted and the price you offered. Set a reminder for eight to ten weeks out — long enough for the market to have delivered its verdict, short enough that they have not yet given up.

Then, when the reminder comes, look before you call. If it has sold, do nothing except note what it went for; that is useful evidence and you may have been wrong. If it is still there, and particularly if the price has been reduced towards your figure, a short message is welcome rather than intrusive:

Saw [property] is still available. No agenda — if it is useful to talk through what I would do differently, I am happy to. If you are sorted, ignore me entirely.

No triumph, no reference to having been right. Sellers in that position are usually embarrassed, and an agent who makes them feel worse does not get the instruction regardless of who was correct.

Saying no to a buyer

The seller version gets discussed; the buyer version almost never does, and it costs just as much time.

The buyer who has viewed eleven properties over eight months and made no offer. The one whose budget does not reach what they are describing and who will not adjust either. The one who wants viewings at times that consume your weekends and who is, on the evidence, not going to buy anything this year.

You do not decline these people. You reclassify them, which is the same decision made kindly: move them out of active viewings and into the quarterly list, and be straightforward about why.

Based on what you are after and what is coming up, I do not think there is much point in us viewing more of the same. What I will do is keep an eye out, and message you the moment something genuinely fits — that way you are not spending Saturdays on near-misses.

That is honest, it is a service rather than a rejection, and it returns the weekend. A meaningful share of these buyers come back a year later with a different budget or a clearer idea, and they come back because you were straight with them rather than because you kept showing them flats.

The one to say yes to instantly

The mirror image is worth naming, because agents hesitate over it: a realistically priced property, from a motivated seller, in an area you know, at a fee that is slightly lower than you would like.

Take it. It sells, it produces a happy client, and a happy client is worth more than the fee difference — which is the whole compounding mechanism of this business, and the reason the agent with fewer, better instructions eventually earns more than the one with a full window.