Latest / Success Is Not Convenient / Your Listing Isn’t Selling. It’s Not the Buyer, It’s the Price.

Transcript

Your Listing Isn’t Selling. It’s Not the Buyer, It’s the Price. · Success Is Not Convenient

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, everybody.
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Bernie Gallerani bringing an episode of Success is not convenient.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is for all my real estate friends today.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I just taught a class with my group today about listing properties, and it just really empowered me to want to share some things with you.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I spent most of my real estate career listing and selling homes, which means that I had very few buyer sales and so a couple thousand listings that I was able to list.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I've probably been in, you know, 3,000 presentations.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna share with you a little bit of today of the things that I realize that we probably need in this market right now.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna get in.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I wrote 10 things that I want to share with you today about listing properties and how to effectively get these homes sold in a market where there's high inventory.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we're dealing with somewhere around five months of inventory here in our market in Nashville, four and a half to five and a half months of inventory, depending on what county you live in.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to talk to you about a few of these things.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a listing agent, you have to be a leader and not an order taker.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: See, a strong listing agent doesn't simply just ask what price would you like to list your home for.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: They'll educate the seller on what the market is saying and then guide them towards a strategy that actually gets the home the best chance to get it sold.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that sounds like basic logic, but you'd be really surprised on how many agents, most actually, who don't do a really good job in this particular area.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to be comfortable telling the truth to the seller.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: In high inventory markets, which is what we have right now, sellers don't need an agent who tells them what they really want to hear.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: What they need is an agent willing to say the market is telling us that we're overpriced.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Productive agents are always willing to have uncomfortable conversations with sellers.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And what I have found in my real estate career is that most agents do not like to have an uncomfortable conversation about price adjustments or improvements because they really don't know what to say after they get asked questions like, Well, what are you doing for me lately?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And will you reduce your commission?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not ready to do that.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And why do you think I need to have a price adjustment?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And really, it's a skill of expressing or getting the seller to understand why a price adjustment is necessary and then not being afraid to have that conversation.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: See, we as agents have to be obsessed with pricing the home and understanding what that means.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So when inventory is high, buyers have lots of options today.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And your property can not simply just fairly be priced, it has to create value compared to the competition.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: See, the best listing agents in the country today constantly study new listings, new pendings, prices of homes, price adjustments happening, how many homes are expiring, how many are selling every month?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Are the here's my question to you guys, agents.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Are you bringing that kind of information to your listing client?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Are you showing them new houses hitting the market?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Are you talking to them and showing them homes that are in their search criteria that are reducing their prices?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Are you showing them all the homes that are just not selling or all the new homes going on the market?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: See, to be a really good listing agent, you have to be really in depth of what's happening in the market.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: High-producing agents, they kind of detach themselves emotionally from seller's price that the seller wants.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot always fall to what the seller wants for the home.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: The seller may believe that the home was worth$750,000.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Agents may recommend a price of$700,000, but ultimately the buyer determines what the property's value is or the property's worth.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Great agents don't become emotionally attached to defending the original list price.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: What we understand right now is we don't control the price, nor does the seller.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Write this one down.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: You, the agent, do not control the price of the home, nor does your seller.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things that I always try to tell my sellers is this there's three ways of evaluating a property.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's three ways.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's the seller's emotional connection to the home.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: They raised their family, they paid the bills, they remodeled it.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: They have an emotional connection to the property.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: They have a lot of memories there.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the the seller also puts up in position what they need in order to make this move.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I know you know what I'm talking about.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: The agents out there going, well, my seller actually needs this to make a move.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's fair, but it doesn't mean that the value of the home is there.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: We as agents, we're the second one.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: We bring comps comparables, we look at price per square foot based on areas, and then we come up with a guesstimated idea of what we feel it's worth.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: But we're wrong too.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And some of you guys might go, well, no, Bernie, I'm actually pretty right.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna go, nope, you're actually pretty wrong because most of the time homes that sit on the market right now have to have price adjustments in order to get sold.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you are wrong, I'm wrong, and the seller is wrong, then the third one is the buyer's evaluation.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where the buyers go in and look at all these homes based on price and condition and make a decision which house they like the best.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if we look at those three things, which one of those three is the most accurate?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's the buyers.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: The buyers make that decision, not us.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: See, we have to expect price adjustments all the time when we're listing agents.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: A price adjustment should not feel like failure.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: It is just a marketing strategy.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're just putting it out there based on what we think or hope that the buyer is willing to pay for the property.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're pricing it or your seller's pricing it, you're probably both wrong.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Your seller is most likely wrong.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're in that, like I'm wrong most of the time category.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: The agent's wrong, let's just call it 50% of the time.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: But the buyer is 100% right all the time.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Since the buyer's the one with the money, they're the ones we're actually our seller might say, Well, gosh, we just haven't had the right buyer in our house.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no, you might have had the right buyer, you just had the wrong price.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: You had the wrong home, you had the wrong condition.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: See, productive listing agents establish this expectation during the listing presentation.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: If the market doesn't respond, we will make this adjustment.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the question I have for you guys that are listening to this, and you're a listing uh you're an agent who lists properties.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Are you having deep conversations with your seller about what the timelines are and when should a home have an adjustment at what period of time or actually on how many showings they have?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: You should probably come up with a timeline.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I have found that have worked really well for me is giving a level of expectation to your seller.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not just going after them after a month and saying, hey, by the way, we really haven't had any showings on your property.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: We probably should adjust the price.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't take that route.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: I would sit at that kitchen table on day one before you get that listing signed and give them an expectation of what should happen.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you mine.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: In seven to 10 days, we need at least three to five showings.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And within the first 30 days, let's just call it or or so, we should have between eight and 12 showings.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we should have an offer.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And if we don't, we typically have a five or 10% adjustment that's going to be needed.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: See, top agents have to communicate more, not less.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're an agent today that doesn't call your client every other day or every week, how do you ever expect to get the home sold within a month?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: How do you ever expect to have that particular listing client really respect you for the job that you do?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: You have to talk to them more than ever before today.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: See, when a home isn't selling, disappearing from the seller is one of the worst things an agent can do.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Great agents, hop agents communicate constantly about showings, about feedback, about the new competition hitting the market, about what's going on with the buyer's activity.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And they're recommending what is the next step for us?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're the expert.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if we're allowing the seller to control us, then we're going to lose at this game most of the time.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: I know I've heard this a lot from a lot of agents.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you don't understand, Bernie.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, they don't really have to sell their home or they need X amount of money to move.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're the professional.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're the ones that have to tell them the truth.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think the biggest problem we have is we're connected to the listing and not to the sale.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: See, top agents have to be willing to lose the listing.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: We have to be willing to go in there and say this is what's going to cause to get the home sold.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if we aren't willing to walk away from it if the price is so high, then we deserve everything we get.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I love this one.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Bernie, the market has a lot of inventory.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And these agents say it all the time because I talk to a lot of homes that are expired today, and you always hear the same crazy stuff coming out of agents' mouth.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's just a lot of inventory.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's really a buyer's market.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's fair.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's an opportunity for buyers out there to get really great homes, but I'm sorry, but just because you're a poor listing agent and you aren't doing a good job at communicating with your client, we need to be better.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: They deserve this.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is a huge deal.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: When an agent desperately needs every listing, the seller controls the conversation.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: And when the agent is willing to say, I don't believe I can successfully sell your home at that price, their credibility increases dramatically.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: So what kind of agent do you want to be?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to be an agent that's a yes agent?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, my mentor Mike Ferry always says to me, There's two salespeople at that kitchen table, you and the seller.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody's gonna win.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that means that if the seller wins, you have a listing most likely you're gonna have trouble with.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you win in that where you're explaining to the seller what the market is doing and you're getting them to understand things, maybe things that they didn't understand before, but because you took time to explain everything to them and you weren't desperately drooling over just getting a listing signed.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Don't, don't do that.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Don't lose your mind to like, hey, I'm just getting a listing.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I came back.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I had an agent one time uh listed a piece of property a few years ago.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was on the market for about a year and a half for two million dollars.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the agent came in, was so excited.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna believe I got this listing.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was an expired listing.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I got it.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, how much did you list it for?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: He says, two million.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, how much was it listed for before?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: He says, two million.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Why did you do that?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, what do you mean?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, why did you list the house at the same price?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: You that the house was already tested at 2 million.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Why did you make the decision to take it at the same price?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I don't know.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what else to say.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: We got to learn what to say.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: We have to educate our people.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: See, top agents have to prospect every single day.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot be a great listing agent if you're afraid of talking to people or having conversations over the phone.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Try calling expired and buy owners and or for sale by owners and you know, call neighborhoods.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna learn to have to have really good, tough conversations with people.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do this, you'll develop a skill to have conversations with people where they start listening to what you're saying, they change the way they look at the situation, and then they make the right kind of conversations happen with you where you're now getting a sellable listing at a price that makes sense.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: See, top agents have to control their own fear all the time, and so do you.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Agents often know what needs to be said, but they don't say it because what they are is they're afraid that the seller will become upset with them.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Guys, they're going to be upset with you if you go against the price that they have in mind or they feel that they need.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I I want to stress this to you fear causes agents to avoid asking for price adjustments, and they avoid the challenging, unrealistic expectations, and they avoid closing for the listing.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: High-producing agents choose effectiveness over comfort.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: I just taught this today, and I was sharing this with my group today.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, any personality style can have a good conversation with a seller and get them to see things.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Some people say, well, Bernie, and you're a you're a driver personality, so you don't have any fear in doing that.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: I taught myself to be honest with people and not be attached to the listing.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Are you doing that?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you really think you are and you have inventory right now that's just sitting on the market.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say this to you guys.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can sell every home, even in this market right now, in 30 days.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Every single home can be sold within 30 days.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, do I sell every home in 30 days?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do I have challenges sometimes with sellers?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: But it isn't a lack of having the conversation.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's just maybe the lack that the seller just doesn't want to do it.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I then have to make a decision do I choose to continue to keep that listing?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: I will give it some time to see if that seller makes some movement, but it isn't for a lack of conversation every single day or every week that I have with that particular seller about price, condition, and market.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: See, top agents have to believe that their job is to sell the house, not simply just list the home.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: There is a major difference.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone can put a property in the MLS.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: A true listing professional continually asks, what do we need to change to make this property the next one the buyer chooses?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to say this to you again.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: What do you have to do right now with your listings?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to look at all of your listings and ask yourself this question What has to happen to this listing in order for it to get the next buyer to choose it?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was asked that question years and years ago by my mentor Mike Ferry, and I had about I personally had about 70 listings on the board, and he asked me, he says, How many of those listings do you think will sell in the next 30 days?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Let me get back with you on that.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then I got back with him and I said, Well, about 50% of the listings I feel comfortable will sell.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: The other 50% I don't think are gonna ever sell.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then he asked me this question, Well, then why do you have them?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I said, good question.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not really sure.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Here's what I want you to do.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to take those 50% of that 70 listings that I had, I want you to call all of them, and I want you to ask them if they're still 100% committed to getting the home sold.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if they say yes, then I want you to share with them the price that will actually cause it to sell within the next few weeks.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if they don't like the what you're saying, then you need to ask them if you can uh withdraw the listing and maybe they go find another agent that'd be willing to work with them at the price they're asking.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you would say, Bernie, I can't do that.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not I wouldn't say you can't, I would say that you won't.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I promise you, if you did, you would get a majority or at least half of that 50% to make those adjustments necessary so you can help them get moved, and then you could get paid.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: High inventory exposes weak listing agents, guys.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say this to you again.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I can only hear the amount of frustration you're gonna have by hearing this.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: But high inventory, if you have inventory right now that's not selling, it just exposes the weakness of your skill.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And what we do is we continually come up with excuses and we blame the market, we blame the interest rates, we blame the war, we blame somebody else.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And all along, it's just our responsibility because we lack skill or lack confrontation conversations that are healthy.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: See, when inventory is low, the market sometimes makes an average agent just look great.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: In a high inventory market, skill is what matters.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you are in a market right now where there's a lot of inventory and you just having a hard time getting things sold, first thing I think we should do before pointing the finger at somebody else is just start to point the finger at ourselves and go, what could I do better to be better?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm listing homes right now in this market, and I'm gonna tell you, I list them every time at the price, and I sell every single one of them.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I do it within a very quick period of time.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've been doing this for so long.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we just take responsibility for what's going on in the market today and we do our job, the winning listing agent has to be more knowledgeable, more direct, they have to be more disciplined, they have to be more comfortable with conflict, better at pricing the home, better at communicating, they have to be really good at prospecting and far less emotionally attached to whether the seller likes everything that the agent is saying.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because our goal isn't for the seller to say, I really like my agent, though that's nice.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: But the goal is for the seller to eventually say, My agent told me the truth, gave me good advice, and got my home sold.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're after.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And as long as we're protecting our excuse, we can never be better at serving the client, which is what our job is.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Guys, I know this is a tough one sometimes, and I want to continue to keep bringing you great tips and ideas, and I'd love to share with you deeper techniques of how to have some of those conversations, and I will here in the future.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: But as a great saying, and I love this saying, and I've lived this for many, many years, when you look yourself in the mirror and you blame everybody for all the problems, you can change nothing.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: But when you look in the mirror and you say, I'm fully responsible for the situation, then I can change everything.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say to you, as great listing agents, take on that level of responsibility because that is our job.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: I hope everybody has a great day.