Had a listing appointment today. Yes, I know it's Sunday and I don't normally work on Sundays, but hey, I'm the Broker, I make the rules and I can break the rules. It was either today after Church or during the week at night. Well figured I would already be dressed in my "Sunday go to meetin cloths", so what the heck, I'd drive on over there. I'd still be home in time to cook lunch for "The Lovely Wife".

Anyway, I had sent these folks a preliminary CMA via E-mail last week and was really looking forward to meeting with them. I knew it was going to be a tuff one, but I felt up to the challenge. The challenge was, they had been listed for 6 months with another Realtor at $360,000, when the house, maximum, is worth only $299,000. They had already told me on the phone they were ready to reduce to $340,000. So I really had my job cut out for me. I won't take an overpriced listing so my goal was to get them to reduce $65,000. Also, since they were with a discount Realtor before, I needed to raise the commission a couple of points as well. So, if you do the math, we are looking at more than a 20% reduction in their anticipated Net.

Big challenge, but I woke up this morning ready to face it. I had prepared an analysis, to take with me, that was over 70 pages long. Now I don't know how you do your CMA's but 70 pages is a little over the top to say the least. It included:

Anyway, you get the point. I was loaded for battle and well prepared to defend my position. Well I showed up for my appointment and as I had anticipated, the house, pool and yard were beautiful. So I was pleased about that. They had put a lot of time and money into it and it showed. The wife gave me the tour as I listened to her and I asked a few qualifying questions while we walked through the house. This is a very important step, as I am trying to find something that will help me in my presentation. I got lucky, one comment she made was, that when they were shopping for homes to buy, the first one they liked didn't appraise and they weren't able to buy it. Bingo! An excellent piece of info to help me with pricing.

So, hubby came in and we all sat at the table and I pulled out my arsenal of data. And of course the first thing I started explaining is how appraisals work and how they can affect the ability of a buyer being able to close on the house if it is not priced right. That was the right approach. It's true and it touched a cord with them since they had experienced exactly that. It opened the door for my discussion on pricing. Backed up with 70 pages of data, I made a strong case and after 90 minutes of hard fought discussion, we have agreed to Range Price the home from $289,000- $309,000 trying to sell as close to $299,000 as possible. Commission came up briefly but was not a factor.

We haven't done the paperwork yet, but I'm confident I have the listing. The Sellers are great people. It's an excellent property. It's priced right. I will be able to sell it. The Sellers will be able to move on with their lives. And "The Lovely Wife" had my "world famous" chicken and yellow rice with black beans for lunch. All in all, a very good day.

This listing, again, shows why it's so important to listen to your potential customers. They may just give you the information you need to succeed in your presentation. Pricing is everything in my market. Helping potential Sellers to understand this is what I enjoy doing. It gives me a great feeling of satisfaction. I just hope I'm not........... counting the chickens before they hatch!