How to tell in one call whether a client is ready to buy abroad

The problem with overseas requests

A client says: I have been thinking about Thailand. What do you do with that? Many agents either dismiss it or forward the client to the first website they find. Both lose money and, more importantly, both lose the client’s trust. There is a middle path: a ten-minute conversation that tells you what you are dealing with.

Question one: what should this purchase do?

Investment, relocation, a place for the winter, a home for a child studying in Asia, a way to move savings out of one currency. Each answer leads to a different property, a different location and a different budget. A client who says all of the above has not decided yet. A client who says winters, three months a year, near a beach with restaurants, has done the thinking.

Question two: what is the total budget, and what is available for the first payment?

Two numbers, not one. Off-plan projects in Thailand are usually paid in stages over construction, so a client with EUR 60,000 available now and the rest over two years is a real buyer for an off-plan unit. A client who needs a mortgage from a Thai bank is, in most cases, not, because non-resident financing is very limited. Ask both numbers and write them down.

Question three: when do you want a result?

Not when do you want to buy, but when do you want to have solved the problem. If the answer is this winter, the local team needs to move fast. If it is in a couple of years, the request is real but the client needs information first, not viewings. Both are fine. What you want to avoid is forwarding a two-year request as if it were a two-week one.

Question four: what is non-negotiable?

Sea view. Walking distance to a beach. A specific school. A rental programme with a management company. A completed building, not off-plan. Every client has one or two. Knowing them saves the local team a week of sending the wrong properties, and it saves your client from feeling unheard.

Scoring it

Three clear answers out of four: refer now. Record the answers in the partner account as the brief. The IBG Property team will call the client already knowing the goal, the budget and the constraints, and the client will notice that you did your job.

One or two clear answers: send the client a short reading list, for example the foreign ownership facts, and set a reminder for a month later.

Zero clear answers: the client is dreaming. That is allowed. Stay friendly, stay in touch, and do not push.

A free tool for this conversation

IBG Property publishes a one-page client requalification map with five questions and space to write the answers. Agents use it on a call or send it to the client to fill in. You can open the client requalification map. It is in Russian today; an English version is being prepared.