If you have a listing that's been lingering on the market, I like to have a “positional pricing” conversation with my seller.

What does that mean? That's for a seller who's not quite ready to do a full price reduction, but they would definitely look at an offer.

So my conversation looks like this. I'll say:

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"Hey Mr. or Mrs. Seller, I know you're not quite ready to do a full-blown price adjustment yet, but can I give you an idea?

And my idea is this: when we have the next showing or we do the next open house and we have attendees, what I like to do is, with your permission, call that buyer or that buyer's agent and say, ‘hey, my seller's gearing up to do a price adjustment soon. Not quite yet, but we wanted to give you some advance notice, so we are going to make you an offer on this home that is going to be reflective of the price that we're going to be going to in MLS, but that's going to be a little bit off, a ways off.

So here's our price for you:”

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So what are we doing...

Here’s an amazing stat that Redfin just put out, and that is that 39% of listings coming on the market are selling — going pending — in the first two weeks. Isn’t that amazing?

But there’s always a tale of two markets out there.

So you’ve got 39% that are going pending, but what about everybody else? The other 60% of listings are not.

And those are starting to linger on the market — a lot of listings on the market over 30 days and 60 days.

So when we have these listings that linger, what do we do?

Well, when we’re having conversations with our sellers, of course the first step is we’ve got to get them realistic on price. But there’s another side of that conversation as well.

So we talk about price. We talk about incentives. Definitely we want to have those conversations.
40% of the market right now — people on the market — have included some price reduction or incentive already.

But we also need to do one other thing that a lot of agents miss, and that is when we’re doing our wee...

Brokers, owners, team leaders, office leaders, I’m going to give you a little tip for your next office meeting.

So sometimes we start office meetings… I’m going to give you one really good way to make these meetings come alive, and I’m going to give you a second good way to really make them come alive.

One is to have the “Genesis Conversation.” What is that?

Well, when you’re doing your “haves and wants,” people are talking about new listings, sales, closings, and so forth. I want you to follow that up and say, “Hey, tell me, where did that listing come from? What was the genesis point where the lead came from, in other words?”

And people say, “Well, it came from my sphere of influence,” or “It was an open house,” or “It was a sign call,” or “It was an internet lead.”

Great. And then you move on to the next person: where was the genesis point for you?

And everybody in the office is going to now really get tuned into where all the leads are flowing from.

80% of the time it’s gene...

Question: how fast do you pivot on price when you list a property?

Sometimes we get it right, and sometimes even the best of us get it wrong. When we get it wrong and don’t pivot quickly, we risk missing the opportunity to sell the property for top dollar.

So, how fast do you pivot? Do you wait two weeks, three weeks, a month, two months? Are you setting that expectation upfront with the seller?

Here’s a study from ShowingTime. They’re integrated with many MLSs across the country and help schedule showings. Because of that, they have their finger on the pulse of showing activity.

Their study, based on tens of thousands of showings, shows that after the first five days, showings plummet on most listings.

Why? Because when a listing hits the market, all eyes are on it. Most buyers—probably 95% to 99%—are set up on portals like Realtor.com, Zillow, or your website. When that listing hits the MLS, the entire backlog of active buyers sees it almost immediately.

Hundreds of buyers look...

Hey guys, have you ever heard the phrase “a high tide floats all boats?” You probably have.

This concept applies to pricing. In a strong market—like we saw during the COVID years—if you priced a home slightly wrong, it didn’t really matter. The market was so hot that it would cover your mistakes. Even if you were off by 4% or 5%, prices were rising 10%, 15%, even 20% annually.

But that’s not the case today.

Today, we’re in a completely different market. There’s an imbalance: about 500,000 more home sellers than buyers. Prices are flat or even declining in many areas. Zillow and Redfin are both predicting price drops this year—the first in several years.

What’s driving this shift? Interest rates. Once rates come back down and buyers re-enter the market, things will likely shift again. But for now, we're stagnant—or even declining—on price.

So, when you're sitting down with sellers, the pricing conversation becomes crucial. We're no longer in a "high tide" market. In fact, the tide ...

Hey guys, did you know that there are 32% more listings on the market today than there were a year ago at this same time?

We're still a bit below pre-pandemic levels, but we’ve climbed past 2023 and 2024 numbers. Sellers are coming back to the market.

But here’s the thing—we’ve got a lot more competition, and while pending sales are higher than last year, they’re not absorbing inventory as quickly as they used to. That means market times are going up.

When we're talking to sellers, it's really important to help them understand what’s happening in real time.

One strategy for doing that is called the Buyer Eye Strategy.

What is the Buyer Eye Strategy?

It means when you're sitting with a seller, you say:

“Hey Mr. and Mrs. Seller, I'm going to set you up just like you're a buyer in this market—someone looking for a home just like yours in the same price range. That way, you’ll be able to see when new listings hit the market, when there are price reductions, when homes go pending, an...

When we're talking to our sellers and giving them feedback each week about what's happening in the market, it's really important that we educate them on a few things that often get missed.

One of those is the power of virtual showings.

So what’s a virtual showing? A virtual showing is when someone visits your listing online. They may or may not come see it in person, but that initial view online is still a strong signal. It means your marketing is working—it's attracting people to look at the listing on Zillow, Realtor.com, your own website, or the MLS.

From there, the buyer decides: Is the listing priced right? Does it look like it’s in great condition? Is it staged properly? A number of other factors come into play once they arrive at the listing page—but your job is to get them there.

And when you’re talking to our sellers every week—and this is how you earn price adjustments, by the way—you need to bring up virtual showings.

Right now, price adjustments are on the rise. About ...

This is the season of open houses. We should be doing more open houses than ever. When you’re hosting them, think about incorporating curiosity questions into your conversational strategy. Curiosity questions can unlock the door to continuing a relationship after someone leaves your open house.

Let me give you an example. What if I said, "Hey, feel free to walk around the house. I’ll answer any questions you have and point out some unique features. But one quick question for you— the seller has authorized me to give anyone who’d like a copy of the CMA we used to price the property. The comparative market analysis—it's almost like an appraisal. Would you like a copy of that?"

This is catnip to most buyers. They usually can’t resist wanting it. Often, they’ll say yes. I’ll respond, “Great! I can text it to you or email it to you—what would you prefer?”

Now I’ve gotten permission to continue the relationship.

Of course, before I make this approach, I would’ve cleared it with the selle...

In my second year as a real estate agent, I took 150 listings. Managing that as a young 20-year-old was a lot, but I knew early on that I needed to systemize my business. That's when I implemented something I called the "auto price reduction."

When I met with a seller, I'd say something like:

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"Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Seller, as part of my communication strategy, I like to do something a bit outside the box. Every two weeks, you'll receive a message from my team—back then it was a letter, but today it would be an email—asking if you want to consider adjusting your home's price if it hasn't sold yet.

I don't want you to be offended by it. If you're not interested in a price reduction, just disregard it. If you want to think about it, set it aside. But if you're open to having a deeper conversation about possibly adjusting the price, we can discuss it. It's simply a prompt to keep the conversation going every two weeks.

The reality is, the longer a home sits on the market, the harder ...

As we approach the end of summer, many listings might still be lingering on the market. Currently, two-thirds of listings in the U.S. have been on the market for over 30 days, and 40% have been on the market for over 60 days. We're seeing more listings and less activity on the sales side, leading to a buildup of inventory and a shift toward a buyer's market.

If you have a listing that’s been on the market for a few weeks with little activity, try this script:

"Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Seller, this week I’m refreshing all my listings. Here’s what that means: I’ll be updating the lead photos so your listing looks new in the MLS. I’ll also revise the property description and review all the data points to ensure everything is accurate.

I’ll also schedule a 'meeting the market' to discuss any potential improvements to the listing. This meeting involves considering any incentives we might offer buyers or buyer’s agents. For buyers, we could consider offering to buy down the interest rate, contri...