In this Q&A style presentation, Chris Prefontaine offers real‑estate agents and investors a practical, script‑driven approach for dealing with sellers who list properties at prices that exceed market support. He emphasizes shifting the responsibility back to the seller by referencing concrete comparable sales and appraisal data, explaining that these are factual market indicators, not opinions. The talk outlines the danger of "fractured closings" when buyers rely on financing for an over‑priced home, describing how lack of recent solid comps can cause deals to collapse after weeks or months. Prefontaine then presents owner‑financing as a tactical alternative that can absorb a price premium through longer terms, positioning the investor as the likely sole buyer willing to overpay. He provides a decision‑making framework for evaluating seller motivation—identifying red‑flags, timing follow‑ups, and distinguishing between sellers who are genuinely motivated versus those who are merely testing the market. Real‑world examples illustrate how to flag conversations, set calendar reminders, and re‑engage after a cooling‑off period. The session concludes with a call to attend QLS Live and the Wicked Smart Summit for deeper, in‑the‑trenches training, promising that applying these methods can lead to multiple high‑profit deals ranging from $45k to $250k, though without guarantee.
Chapters
All right, welcome to this week's Q&A Thursday. Now, this does come up often, and it comes up often when a market is trending downward or flat, and that is when a seller is asking way too much for the property. And you know that either just because you know the market as you're calling, or you know that because you did some comparables. Ahead of time. Now, here's a simple script for you guys, and this is this has worked all the way back to the 90s for me. Okay, so it's not brain science. Just get real comfortable with this. Always, always, always sort of put the onus back on the seller and make sure, and I'll explain what that means in a minute, and make sure that they know that the appraisals is not an opinion. Like comps and appraisals, it's not opinion; it's fact out in the marketplace. And you're on their team. And I say to them exactly, I say, look, I'm on your team. I don't make up the numbers and you don't make up the numbers. Fortunately or unfortunately, the market makes up the numbers. And I would say to them, hey, I just don't see any comps supporting your price. So I'm super curious. And, you know, in an inquisitive way, say, I'm curious, how did you end up pricing that? And if they say anything short of appraisal and realtors, even sketchy because some realtors aren't Experience enough to get to a good appraisal. But if they say anything short of that, then you know for a fact that you've got to have a deeper discussion. And the discussion is sort of like this. In other words, they're probably going to come up with a lame answer if they're grossly overpriced, right? So the comment you can make back is sort of like this in your own words. Yeah, you know, Mr. and Mrs. Seller, the market's sort of sliding down now. And if it's not, you could say it's sort of flat now, whatever the case is. And if you end up selling today, you luck out, you end up selling for this high price that I can't find comps for because someone either doesn't care or know enough about the price or they just fell in love with your house. If they're financing it, if they don't have cash, which is a needle in a haystack, they're financing your house, it's going to die. The deal is going to fall apart. They call that a fractured closing. You're going to have a fractured closing because an appraiser needs solid comps within 6 months of sold properties. Forget what you see in the market and what your neighbor is going to sell for. It doesn't matter. Solid sold comps. Then what happens is you put your house on agreement, takes 40, 45 days, maybe 60 nowadays, and the deal dies. You just wasted an entire process, sometimes 45 to 6— 45 days to 6 months. Now you're back to square one. And what if the market slid even more by then? Can you see how this conversation with the seller is super important? Or you say to them, or you do some owner financing with me and Or someone else, and you give a long enough term to me, and then that'll absorb some of that premium you're trying to get. Because sometimes if there's a premium, you can absorb some if you get the right term. And then you say to them, so I'm basically the only buyer probably willing to overpay for this house. Now let me tell you guys this as an investor, so you're clear. When you hear this from a seller, please know this, it is very much worth you following up on that. Deal if they have overpriced it and you know that and you had that conversation and you know the motivation's there. If they overprice it and it's, hey, I forget what Zillow calls it, make me move price, whatever it is. If they did one of those pricing and they have zero motivation, they're just trying it, and if they don't sell for that price, they're not going to move, that's not worth following up. You're wasting time. However, if they're overpriced and you know no one else is going to buy it because they can't get financing And the motivation's good, like they have a clock ticking, like, hey, in 6 months they're going to have to come to reality, or whatever the motivation is, do follow up. Those are super cool signs for you to do that. These are all signs, by the way, I'll mention this in this same video. These are signs you want to always look for. So for example, I did a call recently for a student. We do that for our associates. And on the call, the gentleman was saying things to me like, I don't care about the repairs. They can take it as it is. The realtors are idiots. He was just— all the flags were going up that said to me, no one's going to buy from this guy. And so I'm going to— I would just treat him nicely and I put a note in my calendar to check with him about 60 days. Because in 60 days, he's probably going to burn through every realtor and every buyer that calls him. And now we can have a different conversation. That's what I mean by listen for flags and reasons to call again, follow up or not. Hope there's some nuggets in there for you. I encourage you to get to one of the events, either QLS Live, you can find that at qlslive.com, or the Wicked Smart Summit, find that at wickedsmartsummit.com. Hang out with us, immerse yourself in more of this Q&A, more of this live in-the-trenches material, 'cause this is what's gonna get you to the 3 payday deals worth somewhere between $45 grand and $250 grand. Now, disclosure, that's not a guarantee. That's what we see in our community. Hopefully you'll have the same result. See you soon.
