Use this script to have the "Red Flags" conversation with sellers before you list their house, so they value you as an agent (and don't shift the blame onto you):

"As your real estate agent, I want to discuss a crucial conversation with you, Mr. and Mrs. Seller. When we list your house, one of two things can happen. Either A) we have showings, which means the market is accepting our price. People are viewing the property, and this indicates they believe the price is fair.

Or B) we have very few or no showings, it could be an indication that the price is too high. If that's the case, I'll come to you immediately, and we'll have to make a quick adjustment. We don't want to be one of those listings that sit on the market without any action.

But there's also something else that can happen, a second red flag, other than price: We can have a lot of showings, but no one pulls the trigger and makes an...

I have a really powerful way to have an honest conversation about commissions with a seller.

This is a great script from one of my top producers.

Here's what he says: "Hey, listen, here's my listing fee. My listing fee is [X, which could be 2.5%, 2%, 3%, or whatever number you choose.] I'm not trying to price-fix here. But what we really need to talk about is what we're going to pay the buyer's agent. We need to look at this as a marketing incentive to get buyer's agents to show the property.

To help you make a decision on what to offer the buyer's agent, I recommend doing a commission map survey. Put a pin on a map and look at every listing that sold within a certain radius, such as a mile, five miles, or half a mile. Of the listings that sold in the area in the last six months, you can see what commission they offered to the buyer's agent.

Based on that, you can decide where you want to be. You...

Did you know that more people in America have pets than children? It's true!

20 years ago, 48% of American families had kids at home. Today, that number is down to 40%.

On the other hand, the number of Americans with pets has increased dramatically, from 56% in 1988 to 70% today.

As REALTORS, this information is valuable to us because it affects our conversations with buyers. When talking to potential buyers, we should ask if they have pets and if their pet will impact their home buying decision. Many people will engage in conversation about their pet's needs and how important they are to the family.

But what if we took it a step further and specialized in working with families that have pets or selling homes with pet-friendly features?

This could be a complete differentiator in the market, as it's not a common focus for REALTORS. Sometimes we need to think outside the box to stand out.

If you want more ideas like this that help you...

I have a concept called "anchor point pricing."

Here's what it means:

During a conversation about price with a seller, I bring up the neighbor down the road who listed their property but didn't really want to sell it. They overpriced their house and have been chasing the market down with four price reductions in the last 90 days. Their home has become stigmatized and people think there's something wrong with it, no matter how low they price it.

I never want that to be the case for my clients, and you shouldn't either.

In this market, first impressions are critical:

The longer a property is on the market, the less it gets.

That's why we use anchor point pricing. Every time potential buyers drive by the overpriced neighbor's listing, they're reminded that they don't want to end up like that person. This conversation can be powerful when someone is on the fence about overpricing their property.

Want more secrets like this that...

Here's something we should all be doing with a seller at the beginning of our relationship:

When we take that listing, we should be resetting expectations on the number of live showings that will occur.

Last year, when we took a listing, we'd have 20, 30, 40, 50 showings in the first week. Today, that number maybe two or three or four or five. It will not be the same as it was last year at the same time.

So how do we reset this expectation?

One thing we need to talk about with the seller is the way the average buyer looks at homes. So last year in 2021, the NAR measured this and they found that buyers, on average, that purchased a home, looked at homes for eight weeks. And during that eight week period of time, they viewed eight homes. But of the eight homes they looked at, they looked at three virtually. And in the buyer's mind, that was a showing.

So we need to educate our sellers about what people consider to be a...

When you drive around your neighborhood or your community, you're gonna see some dilapidated houses. And you know, who else sees those? The city and county.

So what the city and county generally have is a compliance officer that's in charge of enforcing the city and county standards for how homes and properties should be maintained.

Now their standards are probably much lower than our standards, but they have to keep these properties to a certain standard. And if they don't do that, they give the homeowner or the property owner a violation notice. And this violation notice can become sequentially more serious with large fines attached to them.

So why am I bringing this up?

Well, it's a marketing opportunity.

One of the highest concentrations of buyers today is buyers looking for flip opportunities. These dilapidated properties, they can turn around and flip and, and turn a profit on. But there's not very many of them out there.

So...

How many times when you're talking to a potential seller, do they bring up commissions today?

That conversation is probably happening more often than ever before today because it's a hyper competitive market. We're seeing a lot more commission conversations and people trying to negotiate our commissions to some degree.

So I had this great quote that was given to me by a Ninja student. Ninja is a great program. If you haven't taken the ninja class, highly recommend you do it. I've done it for my agents and brought them in twice to teach to my group. But they had a great quote here for dealing with the commission conversation.

So here's the quote (and it's so good):

"Hey, let me ask you this. I totally understand you're asking about commission but let me ask you just a quick question around that:

Do you believe that your house is gonna sell for a fixed price or do you believe it'll sell in a range of value depending on the negotiation...

There's one thing we've all done as human beings, living in the United States of America. I guarantee every adult has thought about this at some point:

They've thought owning a rental would be super cool.

Even if they're not homeowners yet, they've thought it would be nice to be on the other side of the equation — and not be paying rent, but also receiving rent.

So this makes for a great conversation. And there's something interesting that's happening in the world today, which we don't talk enough about in the real estate world, which is this:

A lot of millennials and the next generation of buyers coming in are being taught and embracing this concept that they don't want to own their own home.

They wanna continue renting their own home because they want a mobile lifestyle. And they wanna be able to move from New York to Miami to LA. They wanna surf around and have that mobile lifestyle, but they wanna own a couple rentals.

So...

Almost all of us are going to get multiple offers on at least one of our listings this year, probably several of them.

So what are you going to do to market the fact that you brought your sellers multiple offers?

One way you can do this is by modeling my friend Bill up in the Portland, Oregon market.

He received 13 offers on one of his listings! So what he did is he took a picture with him and his seller reviewing all those offers on the table. All 13 offers were spread across the table and labeled. And he took it at an angle where so you couldn't actually read the offers. You could just see them all laid out there with the seller smiling in the background.

And then he put a statement on social media and said:

"Hey, I got great news:

My seller came to me to market this property. Zillow said the home was worth $429k. We listed it at $459k and now we have an accepted offer well above $500,000 for this home."

What is this post doing?

It's...

If you're looking for a story to post to social media today, here's a great one for you.

A study was recently done about homeowners and how likely they are now to list their home based on the vaccine being available.

So here's the study and what it shares:

It shares that 70% of homeowners say they'd be completely comfortable moving to a new home with widespread COVID-19 vaccine distribution. In other words, they're ready to leave and go into another house because the vaccine is available. That's 7 out of 10 homeowners compared to only 52% who currently feel that way.

Now, we're only at 52% today. But as the vaccine becomes more prevalent and widespread, which we expect them in the next couple of months, that number is going to move to 70%.

It's going to unlock a ton of sellers into the marketplace.

That represents 14 million homeowners who now feel comfortable moving after widespread vaccination. This is a massive opportunity...