What do you do when you take an overpriced listing?
If you’re like me, you’ve encountered some homeowners who have a particular view of their home’s value. They might cite intangible factors or other reasons that their home should be priced higher than what the market says it will bear. In this situation, you have a choice to make: Do you want to service that client and take their listing without being confident in the price, or do you want to walk away from it?
If there’s a reason the homeowner must sell their house—in the case they’re relocating for work, downsizing, or retiring, for example—then you can be a little bit more flexible with their price point. But when you’re sitting on a listing and you have a gut-wrenching feeling that it’s overpriced, what do you do? Here’s my take:
1. Look at the data. The first place I go for data is the number of showings. If you haven’t reached out to all the Realtors who have shown the property, you should call them and get their feedback on it. The website ShowingTime sends out automatic updates, and you can even go on there and change the questions to those you’d like to be answered. For example, you could change it to ask “What price do you feel this house will sell for?” instead of, “Is the home overpriced, underpriced, or priced correctly?”
Do everything in your power to get those other Realtors to put their feedback into writing so that when you give that information to your seller, it’s not simply a matter of your opinion, but rather that of the buyer and their Realtor.
2. Look at the surrounding area. Are the other properties listed around your seller’s priced lower, and are they in better condition? If so, you’re only helping your competition sell. The reality is that if people are seeing it but aren’t making offers on it, then your issue is one of condition or price. If the seller isn’t willing to improve the condition of their home, then they have to improve the price.
3. Look at the MLS data on a larger scale. What is the average number of showings for a property in this price range? You can go to ShowingTime and find out information like this. If, for example, a property that’s priced at $500,000 sees an average of 20 showings in the first two weeks and you’ve only seen six, that’s a surefire way to tell that you might be overpriced. The National Association of Realtors says that if you go two weeks without any showings, your home is likely overpriced. Give this information to your client; it’s not just your opinion.
Do what you can to get your client to identify with what’s selling and why it’s selling, and then get them to make a choice. It would be malpractice for you to advise them to continue on that course without making any adjustments.
The final step is to decide how much to adjust their price. Give them a range of numbers that make sense to you and let them choose. Of course, don’t let them pick a number that’s too small.
If you have any questions or would like to schedule a one-on-one coaching consultation to see if any areas in your business could use a boost, don’t hesitate to reach out to me for guidance. I’d love to help you.
