I had one of my best agents come to me a couple years ago and she said, "Jim, I got a listing that's priced right. And we're getting showings. But we're not selling the property."

And I said okay, let's go take a look at it. So I made an appointment with her and we went up and looked at the property. And immediately when I pulled up, I knew what the problem was. The property had a steep driveway. And I told her I bet a lot of people were commenting on the driveway. And she said, "Yes, true. We're getting a lot of negative comments on the driveway. And I think that's really the biggest reason why people aren't, you know, looking at the house. Or looking at the house, but then rejecting it."

So we went in and explained to the sellers that they can have the best price property in the world. And actually, have the best house in the world, but that driveway could be the stumbling block for getting it sold.

So I'm gonna give you a suggestion, which may sound kind of out there...

How do you normalize a price reduction?

People don't wanna feel like they're the only ones reducing their price. And some sellers may not be in tune with the market like we are. They may be assuming that the market's like it was six months ago. And they're the only person that's not selling right now.

Of course, we know that's not true. We know the market's changing. We know there's more inventory hitting the market than we've seen in a long time. We know interest rates are impacting the marketplace.

So how do we normalize a price reduction?

The way you do it is to show others in your market that are also reducing their price at the same time. So here's how you do it.

When you're talking to a seller, you can say:

"Hey, Mr. And Mrs. Seller, you know, we haven't had a lot of showings and that's probably directly to related to our price. We're seeing more competition. Interest rates are definitely eroding buyers' buying power. But I wanna share something with you t...

Hey guys, now that the market's becoming more competitive, one idea to help your sellers be more competitive is to use the "Buyer Eye Strategy."

What's the "Buyer Eye Strategy?"

When you're sitting with the seller and you've just listed to the property, you might say something like this:

"Hey, Mr. And Mrs. Seller, now that we got the property listed, here's what I'm gonna do when I get back to my office. I'm going to treat you guys as if you were a buyer for a property that's very similar to yours. So here's why I'm doing that:

"I'm gonna set you up an MLS on a search pattern that's gonna include your house, but also any other houses that are listed that are similar. This way, you're gonna see everything in real time, every single listing that's happening. Every price reduction, every pending, every closing that's occurring in your price category. And this will really tune you into the market.

"And if you decide, Hey, look at this as a new listing over here, that's doin...

There's a new stat out that shows some unprecedented numbers. And the numbers reflect that home buyers entering the market today are paying 39.4% higher mortgage than they did last year at the same time.

Now, why would their mortgage go up almost 40%?

The number one reason?

Interest rates.

Also a bit of home price increases as well. But by and large interest rates going up seven of the last eight weeks. They've gone up so fast.

So when we look at this, some of our buyers may be saying, "Hey, let's pump the brakes on me buying."

How do you respond to that? Well, the response should be a reflection on what happens if they don't pull the trigger now and they wait. We know the Fed is already planning to do six more rate hikes this year, starting right now in May.

So as we begin to roll through the rest of the year, it's highly likely these interest rates aren't gonna go lower. They're gonna go much, much higher as the Fed tries to break the back of inflation.

So with th...

​​One thing we should all be aware of right now is that a lot of home sellers are reevaluating their price.

And one thing you should be monitoring in your own market area is the number of price adjustments that are occurring every 24 hours. Maybe on your hot sheet, your MLS data sheet, it's gonna show that number. Keep it a close eye on that, and then think about it with your own sellers.

Here's something that's interesting:

In the last few weeks we've seen 3.5% of all the sellers in America reduced their price.

Now that doesn't sound like a lot. But remember, we're coming off one of the hottest real estate streaks we've ever seen in our market.

But the market's starting to cool when it comes to pricing and people are starting to adjust to get ahead of the market. Typically we don't see price adjustments begin to happen at this level until July or August.

So why are sellers starting to adjust prices much, much earlier than ever before? It's because they're watching in...

Hey guys, we are still in a low supply market. It's the lowest supply real estate market we've ever seen.

Despite the marketing changes and interest rates rising and the market dynamics kind of influx, still low supply and high demand.

So based on that, how can we go out there and still crush it in the market? How can we thrive despite the market conditions starting to shift under our feet?

One strategy is use the "Pocket Listing Strategy."

It's one of my favorite strategies and it's totally underused. Very few people do it.

Here's the concept:

One in seven homeowners today has raised their hand and said they're interested in selling the next three years. That's 15% of the population.

Drive through any neighborhood, and one of every seven homes you drive by is thinking about selling in the next three years.

There's a massive pent up seller demand, but how do you turn the key to unlock it?

Well, a large group of those people may not be ready to actually put their hom...

Here is a crazy stat that will be interesting for your sellers when you're sitting down to talk about a listing:

84% of the properties coming on the market are selling in less than 30 days across the country.

Now I would encourage you to dive deeper into your own local MLS and see what the number is for your local MLS. But it's probably gonna be somewhere in that neighborhood.

Now, another inverse number to that is what percentage of properties are staying on the market longer than six months? When you go back to 2011, that number would've been about 35%. Today, it’s 2%.

2% listings coming in the market are staying on for longer than six months.

You can just see how the market is so strong right now for sellers and how it's such an advantage to put your home on the market today as a seller.

Another great number to pair with these numbers is the fact that on average sellers are receiving 4.8 offers per listing. That's coming on the market in the United States. Let's cal...

At this time of year, a lot of sellers will say something like this:

"Hey Jim, I think I'm just going to wait because I will probably get more from my house later anyway. So I'm just going to wait until spring or summer and see what happens then."

How do we address that comment or that concern?

I'm going to give you one script that's worked for me over the years. And it works by talking about the fact that when we're staying and rebuying in the same market, waiting doesn't make a lot of sense.

So let's put this in practice. You might say,

"Hey, I hear what you're saying, but here's something to consider, right? If you're buying or selling in the same market -- because the entire market's going up in value at the same time -- waiting to sell your home to buy another home just means the other home you're buying is also going up in value at the same time.

In fact, there's a little bit of a Delta that if you're buying a higher priced home, it might be more expensive the ...

Hey guys, when you set a price on a property, how fast do you pivot if you got the price wrong?

And we all get prices wrong, I've gotten prices wrong. Anybody that's been in the industry for any length of time has gotten the price wrong.

So how fast do you pivot? How fast do you reach out to the seller to try to get that price adjustment?

There's a new study done by ShowingTime, which shows that the average across America, in our current market for there to be a massive drop in activity is five days.

After five days, activity goes straight down.

So we have a five day window to try to generate a lot of showings and hopefully multiple offers. If we get past that five days and we don't do an adjustment, we're probably going to have a hard time meeting the market where it's at.

So we have to lay the groundwork with sellers and have a conversation with them about this five day window. It's not two weeks. It's not three weeks. It's not a month. We're not giving it that leng...

Interesting question:

How much does what someone sees on TV impact their buying patterns or buying behavior?

And that's a question that was asked within the new staging report from the NAR — the National Association of Realtors. And here's what they found:

63% of REALTORS say that when they're out showing homes to buyers, that the buyers requested to view homes that were comparable to those that they had seen on TV.

Further:

Because of that, 35% of REALTORS say that they have patterned their staging around what they see on TV as well. So TV is definitely having an impact in the real world of selling real estate.

So when we look at those numbers, when we dig deeper, here's what's interesting:

When we ask the bigger question, how many REALTORS are actually staging listings at all?

Here's the numbers:

* 31% of REALTORS stage every listing.

* 13% only staged difficult homes

* 8% only stage high priced homes

But most interesting behind all this:

* 42% do not stage, b...