The short answer
Check the listing yourself before it goes live: photograph order, a floor plan, and every room actually described. Then agree two things with your agent in writing while you still have their attention: how viewing feedback reaches you, and at what point you would revisit the price. Both are far easier to agree now than in week six.
The first week is the week
A property gets most of its attention in the days after it appears, when it lands in the alerts of everybody already searching. That audience sees it once.
Which means a listing that goes live with three photographs and no floor plan has spent your best week, and re-listing it properly afterwards does not get that week back.
Read your own listing like a stranger
Agents write a lot of these and yours is not the one they are thinking hardest about. Read it as though you had never seen the house.
- ✓Is every room described, including the ones that are not flattering?
- ✓Is there a floor plan, and are the dimensions right?
- ✓Does the photograph order lead with the strongest room?
- ✓Is anything in the photographs that you are taking with you?
- ✓Is the council tax band and tenure there, plainly?
Agree the feedback arrangement now
Not knowing what viewers said is the part of selling that makes people feel powerless, and it is entirely avoidable.
Agree at instruction how feedback reaches you and how quickly: after every viewing, in writing, within a day or two. Asked for at the start it is simply the arrangement. Asked for in week five it reads as chasing, and you get a summary rather than the words.
Agree the price review before you need it
Set the trigger by viewings rather than by weeks. Ten viewings and no offer says something quite different from no viewings at all: the first is a problem with the house or its presentation, the second is a problem with the price or the photographs.
Agreed in advance, a price review is a plan you made. Agreed in week six under pressure, it is a concession.
Decide who does the viewings, and stay consistent
Both answers work. Alternating between them is what confuses buyers and makes a house feel disorganised.
If you do them yourself, be brief and then be quiet. Sellers who stay in the room and narrate frequently talk buyers out of a house they had already decided they liked.
Where this applies
This describes selling in England or Wales. Scotland is materially different: a Home Report is normally prepared before a property goes on the market, which changes both what a buyer sees up front and what you prepare beforehand.
The two things worth agreeing in writing, feedback and a price review, are worth agreeing anywhere.
Quick answers
Should I pay for professional photography?
Ask what is included first: many agents include it, and some charge for an upgrade. The floor plan matters at least as much and is cheaper.
Can I ask the agent to change the description?
Yes, and before it goes live is the easy moment. It is your house and your sale, and a description that misses a room is not a matter of taste.
What if I disagree with the asking price?
Ask for the comparable sales it is based on rather than arguing about the number. If the evidence is thin, that is a conversation worth having before you instruct rather than after.
Put this guide to work
General information for England & Wales, not financial or legal advice. Costs are typical 2026 ranges and vary by region and circumstances.