If you’ve been in business any amount of time, you know how these people can drive you nuts. I think all of us could sit around all day and just vent about it. But, why don’t we do something to fix it? Buyers are buying, and will jump on a property that is a deal. The other day an agent I know told me that recently, one of his listings had sold in two days. How?
Simple, it was priced right. Even though the house was in bad shape, the price was very competitive (compared to other listings), which caused it to sell. How do we find motivated sellers and get listings priced right to sell? I’m going to go over this question the next few days.
Here’s the first big mistake agents make trying to get listings: Fighting over the price up front. This one mistake alone will often cause the most motivated seller to list with someone else, even if you’re the best agent in the world.
I’ve seen a lot of agents make this mistake. But, why fight a losing battle. When a seller first lists their house, they aren’t realistic about what it takes to sell a house. They think it is the agent, the marketing, open houses, newspaper ads, etc. The agent makes a difference, but open houses and newspaper ads don’t.
When you fight over price when the seller is listing the house for the first time, you’re fighting the wrong battle. It’s like pitching the wrong benefits to the customer. If you have any experience in sales you know what I mean. For example, the other day I bought a phone for my house
I was looking for a 2 line phone for the house that also had a cordless headset. I looked at all this stuff at Radio Shack. Did any of the little Radio Shack Display stickers talk about 2 lines? No. All of Radio Shack’s promotional stickers talked about technical things, and things that were meaningless to me. I looked over all the phones and couldn’t find a 2 line phone. I spent 2-3 minutes looking over all the phones for the 2 line ones.
One of them looked like it might have 2 lines. But, the Radio Shack sticker said “Great Reviews.” Do you think I care about so called “Great Reviews?” No! I was starting to get annoyed when I finally figured it out.
How did I manage to locate the 2 line phones? One of the phones actually had “2 lines” written real small on it. I had finally found what I wanted. The point I make with this story is that you have to be selling what people want to buy. It may not be what they actually need. But, it you try to sell them what they need (but don’t want), they won’t buy it.
This is one of the reasons I like expired listings. But, I’ve even seen people that are still stubborn and overpriced, even after they have expired 2-3 times. Nine times out of ten, expired listings are more realistic, but you still find some nuts every once in a while.
So, when you first meet a seller, pitch on how you will get buyers to their home. Talk about your Marketing Plan of Action, and any other strategies you may have to generate buyers. More importantly you have to be confident in yourself and your abilities. My strategy today is to qualify on motivation versus how well they price the listing upfront. After I get the listing, I’ll have a whole 6 months to get the price where I want it. I’ll go into how I do that in tomorrow’s e-mail.
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Ben & Chris Curry The Short Sale Agent's Advocate
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