How to Sell Listings Faster: Smarter Pricing & Data-Driven Adjustments

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Hey, welcome to Tom Ferry Podcast Experience. If you're listening to this on audio, you're going to love this message. And you also might want to jump over later and watch us on YouTube because I'm going to unpack the answers to the questions I've been receiving the most, which is, hey, Tom, how do I get my listings sold faster? What do I need to say in an email? The don't fire me report, how do I price things better? And most importantly, what do do with all my inventory that's sitting right now? So if you're finding yourself in that situation, as one of my clients just said to me, literally, she's got 94 active listings and I challenged her to amend the price on 40 of them. We had to talk about the dialogues and the don't fire me report to empower her to have the confidence that she needs to be able to educate the consumer so they can make a good decision. So thank you so much for listening to this show and let's have some fun. So, Hector, let's go and put up the slides. And again, I'm reading off these if you're listening and your car. This is going to be a great thing for you to listen to over and over again, but definitely check out the YouTube show where you'll see all this. So, as I mentioned, I recently surveyed a bunch of my clients in 41% of the people. When I asked, what's the biggest frustration you have? They said, sitting on listings that aren't selling, not satisfying the needs of my clients, not getting these properties sold. So what we looked at was what are the three strategies that you might want to make an adjustment on now, again, I'm going to share everything and it's up to you to pick apart the pieces that you can add into your plays so you can have more confidence and be more effective. So we're going to talk about three things. Some simple dialogues around pricing, the don't fire me report, AKA what do you send to your sellers on a weekly or monthly basis to keep them informed so they can make good decisions, and then of course, some price reduction dialogues. So let's jump right into pricing first and foremost. And if again, I'm reading literally right off the slides here, you know, you're going to sit down and you're going to do all the things that you do. You're going to present your marketing. But let's get to the pricing part where we say, hey, so now that we've reviewed the market, I want you to be empowered to price your home, to sell and ultimately to help you generate the highest possible net proceeds in the time that's right for you, your family, etc. Right. All the details. You know, here's what I know. Most agents price homes by looking at the comparables, the recent sales data, and then they ask the home seller, what, what would you guys like to do? Where do you want to price the property for sale? And they put it into the seller's hands. And I get that pricing strategy. I take a very different approach. You see, I study homes and prices and communities and trends every single day. Sometimes I've got to look at it compared to what the tenure is doing. Sometimes I've got to look at it in comparison to what, you know, other big builders are doing. So I'm looking at the market every single day, what's hot, what's not, and how I can then best serve from a pricing standpoint, my customer, you. So you've probably seen something like this before. And people come to me all the time and they say, Tom, I want to sell for the highest possible price and I'd like to do it the most reasonable amount of time possible. Now, if you're looking at this slide, it's the traditional bell curve of price and time, right time on the bottom, right price all the way up to the top. And you know, if you're talking to one of my clients who has a, call it an $8 million average sales price for one segment of her market and an $800,000 sales price on average for another segment of her market, she knows in the higher end there might be a 12 month supply of inventory. So she's going to show that blue line, certainly further out to show people where the property is most likely to sell, where if maybe it's a mid price or lower price, it's going to be as close as possible to launch of that listing in order to get them the highest probable sale or the highest possible price, I should say. So again, if you're looking at this bell curve, if you haven't added something like this into your listing presentation, I highly recommend it. If you're listening on audio, you can imagine a bell curve with time and price and trying to help the seller make a good decision and ultimately not chase the market. And if you're looking at that bell curve, once it gets over the top, where it's the highest probability to sell at the highest possible price, you and I both know at this point they're now chasing the market. They're chasing the market. Getting farther and farther away from their dream of selling this home, plus their carrying cost and everything else, you know, that's impacting that person while they're sitting on that listing. So we go back into the script and we say, so I've actually found that there's three ways to price a home. Let's go through the three ways together, because I want to empower you with options. So the first way is people will say to me, tom, help me set a record price. And again, you know your market, so you need to be mindful of how you're going to say this. But, like, people want a record price. So that's one option. They say, I want to set a record price. Option number two, people will come to me and say, tom, look, we. We need to get this done. We're motivated to sell. You know, we don't want to give it away. And I say to him, well, we probably should look exactly where buyers are paying today, and we have enough data to understand what we should price it accordingly. And again, I'm bouncing between the script and my conversation with you. If you're in a marketplace where home prices are slowly going down, then you and I both know you better price that property below the last comp. But if you're in a marketplace where home prices are flat, you could probably go a little below, right at, or slightly above. But if the market's going up, you can price it accordingly. So, again, know your market. The first one is record price, needle in a haystack. That's what they're looking for. Number two is what buyers are actually paying. And number three, Mr. Mrs. Seller, is you say to me, tom, we want the highest possible price. What's the best way to create a frenzy? A bidding war? Because I've heard when a bidding war occurs, then there's a good chance that home prices can go up. And that's where we look at the data together. We look at what buyers are actually paying for your home, and we price it accordingly, below the comps. Then when I unveil all of my marketing online and offline, the phone calls, the text, the emails, the social posts, the videos, letting the world know on Zillow, Realtor homes, and everything else, the world now knows your home's for sale. We get every agent who's sitting on that one buyer who's been waiting for an opportunity to get into your property, and ultimately we bid that price up. So you've got three different choices today, and I want to empower you to make the right decision. For you, for your family, et cetera. So we can try and set that record price. We, we can price it accordingly where what we know buyers are actually paying and, or we can create a frenzy, a bidding war with price. So I guess my question for you is, which option do you believe can generate the highest net proceeds and get the job done in a reasonable time? And then you shut up. Yes, I'm talking to you. Then you shut up and you just sit there and you let them go, oh, what about this and what about that? What about this? And, and you, you describe all of this. Now eventually I know it's going to happen. Someone's going to say to you, but Tom, another agent said they can get me way more money for my home. Shout out to coach Randy Ora, who came up with this brilliant line. And I could think of tens of thousands of agents that have used this, so you might be familiar with it. He says, Mr. And Mrs. Seller, I could line up 1,000 agents outside your door. Every good agent looks at the same comparable sales data. We all see the same exact pricing data. So if another agent tells you a price that's way above what buyers are actually paying, honestly, I think you should ask yourself, like, why are they doing that? I mean, are they not looking at the data? And again, you know, that's a pretty serious doubt drop that we're putting inside their head. And look, we, we know that there's a percentage of the agents that will just take any listing at any price because that's what they're looking for. We don't want to cut their legs out from under them, but we want to make sure that the seller is empowered to make a good decision. So be mindful of, you know, don't beat up the other agents, but plan some appropriate doubt drops. Is that fair? All right, so that's the first strategy. And again, if you go back through my YouTube channel and my podcast, there's all kinds of stuff on pricing for sake of time because my team just told me I'm already a few minutes in, let's talk about the don't fire me report. So this is something that, you know, as the market shifted from, as we lovingly refer to it, the champagne and cocaine of 2020 and 2021. I got my bud over here laughing. To a more normalized real estate market. We went from days on market, 14 seconds to in some cases, 3 months, 4 months, 5 months depending upon the price point, could be 11 months for some of our high end clients. So, so the don't Fire me report. That's certainly not going to be the headline of your email. Instead it is your ability to communicate effectively these six things to your seller on a weekly basis. Here's the showing an activity feedback. Here's the open house activity, here's the stats that you need to know in terms of what's for sale, how many properties, what the absorption rate is, any highlights that you know are impacting what's going on with the property marketing efforts, and of course, your recommendations. And again, if you're listening to this, I love you and I appreciate you. Maybe take a photo of this and just let me know. Just tag me in a photo that you're listening. The Tom Ferry Show. This is episode 299, right, Hector? I love it, man. Next up, 300. Here we go. All right, in case you're wondering if this is a recording live and there's any editing happening, so the weekly don't fire me report essentially is an email that you're sending. You know, hey. Dear Leo, here's what's going on. Here's the showing activity, here's the feedback, here's the open house activity, here's the stats, here's the highlights, here's the marketing efforts, and ultimately, here's my recommendations. Now really what this does is this sets you up to get to the third strategy, which is how do we ask for the price reduction? How do we ask for the price reduction? And you have to decide again, you know, your market. If I think of some of my clients that are in second home communities, this might be a zoom meeting. Maybe it's a phone conversation, maybe it's face to face. If you're local to them and you really, really, really want to get this right, I would encourage you to sit down face to face. You're almost relisting the house, if you will, and I think that warrants a face to face meeting. So you decide what's right for you. Let's take a look at the daily. The dialogues. Let's listen to the dialogues and then you decide what are the adjustments you want to make or do you want to just turn this show off and I don't know, go back to listening to Joe Rogan, who knows? Here we go. So, so I've now gone through. They got the email and I'm like, hey, so let's review our marketing. Let's review what's happened in the last 30 days. And I've given you a whole bunch of things here. So as I mentioned, we sent out four emails where your property was showcased. We got Y response. We sent out Y text messages to Y of buyers that we're working with about your property. And we've actually made over Z number of phone calls to potential prospects where we felt they were most likely to be interested in your property. In addition, as I mentioned, you probably saw, because I've tagged you in a few X number of pieces of content that did receive this many shares and this many likes and this many stars and all that stuff. And then I'm going to say we've also, of course, done X number of open houses with Y people through the property. And we've had X number of people look at and or save your property on Redfin, on Zillow, on, you know, homes and everything else. So I'm telling them, this is everything that we've done, right? I'm showcasing. This is the inertia that we put into the marketplace. You don't want to go as fast as I'm going. You want to take your time with this. You want to go. It's almost like in an infomercial when they stack the cool. But wait, there's more like, you want to go, and we did this, and we did this and we did, and we did this, and then we even did this. And then we went out of our way and we did this. So you can ultimately say all of this resulted in blank showings. In blank showings, what's the blank? Fill in the blank. 2, 5, 22. What was the number? And then you say, and of course, as you know, Z offers no offers. One lowball offer, whatever it may be. Now, my point to you is you need to be. It's kind of like the doctor who sits down and says, here's the diagnosis, right? We've made this and this and this. I asked you to change this, this, this, and this. And here's where we're at. We know in persuasion, we know in influence, you can be in one of three positions of posture. Ready? You could be the subordinate. Oh, I just want to tell you, and this is what's going on. And you know, but ultimately, you're in charge. You decide. That's one set of positioning strategies. The other one is be the peer, right? You and I know we're looking at each other eye to eye. We're on the same page. Like, you know, you've sold homes before. I sell a lot of houses. We're together on this. Or you can rise above it. And you could be the expert. And again, not a cocky expert, but the most Informed, the one that studies the market the most, the one that sells the most houses. And it's up to us to look them in the eyes and tell the truth. Our job is to help this person move forward, regardless of expectations and hallucinations about how much they need or what they want. Our job is our job. Right, so once we do that, then we're going to say, so now let's review the market over the last 30 days. So, as you know, buyers have a choice today of blank number of listings active in your price range with your features. And we've just added Y number of new listings in the last seven days, increasing our competition. But what you probably don't know, and wouldn't it be cool, by the way, if you were face to face and you included a stack of these? Here is the number of homes that were on the market, didn't sell, their contract expired, these people tried to sell and it didn't work out. And you actually showcase the expireds. I know many agents that today are bringing that stack of expireds with them on listing appointments. If I'm relisting the house, if I'm trying to get them to amend the price, it might be an effective strategy to say, there's a lot of people in the market that wanted to get the highest possible price and look where they are today. Look where they are today. Right. They're an expired listing. So again, buyers have choices. X number of active listings in your price range, in your features. We just added blank new listings in the last seven days. But we've also seen 22 properties come off the market that tried to sell, missed the mark, didn't sell, and now they're scrambling, probably feeling slightly embarrassed, trying to figure out what they're going to do next. And in the last 30 days, as you know, we've had X number of sales. Now, I want them just to sit on that. I want them to sit on it before I get to the close. The close is so Tom and Kathy, clearly the market, the agents, and most importantly, the buyers have spoken. Most importantly, the buyers have spoken. Now, again, you probably hear my tone shifting down a little bit here. I want to be the authority. I want to be the expert. Hey, listen, Tom, clearly the market, the agents, and most importantly, the buyers have spoken. And you know what they've told us? You know what they've told us? Our pricing is off. Our pricing is off. You just look at them or you're over the phone and you just give them a little pause and then you say, so I'M going to recommend we amend the price to X. Now, you could say reduce. Reduce and amend are the same thing. I think amend is just a softer word. They get it. Either way is fine. We need to reduce the price. We need to amend the price. And then I pause and say, so what would you like to do? So what would you like to do? And I shut up and I just let them sit there and look. Influence is the ability to ask questions that naturally and automatically lead you and the prospect to a mutually desired end result. The desired end result is they want to sell for the most money possible. So for us to be influential, we need to ask the right questions and let them make the sale in their mind. Let them churn through their decision making. They may not say to you in that moment, hey, we're ready to go. Let's go. Reduce the price. No, they're. Well, I need to think about it. I want to pray about it. I want to talk to my spouse, whatever it may be. That's okay. But you might have some people that say, are there any alternatives? Is there any alternatives? Is there anything else that you could be doing? And that's where I want to share with you, a few alternatives. So, again, I don't know the appointment you went on, I don't know if you already did it, but we know one thing is if you stage the property, it's going to show better. We know that. Of course, if there's improvements that the buyers are saying, you know, we're a little. This that needs to be changed. Boy, it's a nice house, but I really don't want to do that. One thing that I've studied and seen, certainly with all my clients is in most marketplaces around the world, four years or newer is new construction. And people love that. And everything else is a project. So if it needs to be improved, ask yourself, what can we do to improve the project? Number three, of course, the seller rate. Buy down. Always a good idea. Look at what many of the big builders are doing. They're making it easier for buyers to say yes by buying down the rate. So could the seller do the same? Number four is the reverse offer strategy. And I've got a video here from my buddy Jaime down in Houston who sent me this note. And he's like, Tom, he's like, the reverse offer strategy. I was in a mastermind and a couple of my guys and gals all said, oh, you gotta try it. So here's what he did. He took one of his properties and he said, look, this is what I'm gonna do. We're gonna amend the price to X. We agreed on that. But before I, like, release that to the market, I'm gonna call two or three agents that have buyers that have looked at the property once or twice, and I'm gonna give them 24 hours to respond in an offer before we release it to everybody else. And guess what? The reverse offer strategy over the phone. Hey, my buyer, you know, my seller is about to amend the price to this. I'm going to give you and your buyer 24 hours. If you guys want to write an offer, here's the terms that matter most to my seller. That strategy works, my friends. Does it work every single time? Of course not. But to have one more arrow in the quiver to get the job done is always a good idea. Number five, you can auction it. I'm never blown away by, especially in the higher end when I see properties being auctioned. Right. Lots of, lots of ways that we can do this. Lots of companies that will make this available for you. But it's another alternative. Number six, hey, we can rent the property out. Not going to get the price you want. Why don't we keep it as an asset? You keep telling me I've got a 2.85 interest rate. Well, then we shouldn't sell it. Let's rent it out. But, Tom, we need the money. Okay, well, if you need the money, we've got to amend the price. But if you're not willing to amend the price to here, then we should look at renting it out and having a cash flow. Right. Again, we give people options so they can make good decisions. And if all else fails, number seven, Mr. Mr. Seller. One option is maybe we just take it off the market. Maybe now is not the right time for you guys to be on the market. Maybe. Maybe you need the world to settle down. If that's, you know, if you're in the US Or Canada or someplace around the world where, you know, a percentage of the population is concerned about what's happening in the world. So. So maybe that's an alternative, but I'm going to share with you as I close this out, and I can't wait to get your feedback both on YouTube podcasts. And do take a photo if you're listening. In your car, take a photo. You know, I love it. Tag me in it. I oftentimes share those to give you a little shout out because I do appreciate it. I love this question from my dear friend and great client, Timmy Smith. He says all the time ready. At what price are you no longer a seller? At what price are you no longer a seller? Now, I just shared this recently. I was in Las Vegas doing an event with about 700 agents, and I shared this question. And somebody says, well, I ask people all the time, what's your bottom line? Well, I don't know. If you ask me what my bottom line is, I feel like I'm. I'm giving away too much. The same question asked differently, that will get you a really good result is at what price are you no longer a seller? And that's when they start to tell you, I'm kind of here. They're not going to give you the floor, but they're going to give you a price reduction. And that's what we wanted in this last segment. So as we wrap this up, quick little, you know, show you've got price reduction, don't fire me, report emails. I'm giving you all this stuff and that wonderful little bell curve, all these scripts and dialogues. Look, my goal for 22 years since I started this company has always been the same. I'm in the business of helping my clients sell more houses and have a better quality life. That's what it's about. I'm in the business of helping my clients, you sell more houses and have a better quality life. And of course, yes, I'm also in the business of attracting more people just like you. So thank you so much for being a part of the show. I can't wait to read your comments. I know I talked fast, but my podcast guest is sitting right there and I gotta go film another show. So thank you so much for being a part of this. Can't wait to read your comments. Send this to a buddy that needs to hear it. Send it to a buddy that needs to share it. If you're an office manager, maybe play this in your next sales meeting. Thanks so much for watching. Remember, always, your strategy matters. And now more than ever, your passion rules. That's OG Tom Ferry show stuff. We're out. Thanks so much.