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Pricing Strategies for Tough Sellers

Written by Realty Times Staff Posted On Sunday, 10 September 2023 00:00

"We want to price it at the top of the market to get the most money from our home..."

You've never heard that before right? Unreasonable sellers? High expectations? Zero grasp of the market?

I know, I feel your pain. And since we are smack dab in the middle of a buyer’s market- I thought I'd share a couple of my favorite dialogues and strategies for pricing listings right in ANY market.

So when you're faced with this particular objection - try this is a slight variation of a piece called our Price Pyramid and it's designed to illustrate the importance of pricing the property at or below market value.

With this visual, it's as simple as walking the seller through each tier of the pyramid, and then reviewing the most common mistakes sellers make in terms of price. For example:

"I understand how you feel, Mr. & Mrs. Seller. In fact, that’s something we hear quite a bit. What I’d like to share with you however is just that same decision has cost others tremendously and I would hate for that to happen to you. What I’d like to show you is what we call the Price Pyramid so that you can better get a feel for how the price you choose now can positively or negatively impact the amount of money you’ll get from your investment.

Let me explain.

As you can see, when you price your home at the top of the market, you eliminate many prospective buyers - they are simply unwilling to look at property they deem overpriced.

The same is true for other agents-they have an obligation to their buyers to find them the best home for the best price. So you can see that by pricing your home at the top - you limit yourself to just 10% of the potential market.

Now, when you price your home halfway between the market price and the investor price, you will attract the highest percentage of retail buyers - this is the most favorable range.

Of course, if you want to sell your home in the shortest possible period of time, you’ll want to price your home below the halfway mark between market price and investor price.

This expands your buyer prospects considerably, giving you both retail buyers and investors bidding for your property."

I would also go ahead and walk them through the five most common mistakes that you see on the bottom of the piece.

In fact, many of our clients include this piece right in their pre-listing package. It helps overcome the objection before you ever even sit down to the listing table. Try it!

The Dilemma Technique (Lie or Level?):Another one of my favoritedialogues is from National Speaker’s Association Hall of Famer Floyd Wickman. Use this when working with sellers who are already itching to price it high:

"From whatI’veshown you of the comparables for your home, if we can agree on price, would you let me go ahead and list the house today? Before you answer though, I have to tell you that I have a dilemma that I’d like to chat with you about.

Remember how I did the research on what other properties have sold for in this area? And the reason I did that was so that we could use those comparables to determine the best price for your house?

Well, see that’s where I hit a snag. Do you remember when you told me on the phone that you thought the house was worth $200,000?

Well, my dilemma is that when I ran all those numbers, I couldn’t come anywhere near that price in terms of comparables.

And you know, that’s not even my biggest problem.

I guess my real dilemma is, knowing what I know about the price your home will sell for - is that I’m faced with a tough choice - do you want me to lie to you or level with you? You see, rather than just tell you what you’d rather hear like some agents would - I’d rather turn you down now than let you down later. So what do you think I should do? Lie or level?"

**Have the comparables handy and show them the facts and figures

More than 90% of home buyers and sellers start their search for an agent online. The more information you can give them, the more knowledgeable and professional you appear - the better your chances of getting their attention.

People love to get free information - and you need to develop you email database - so free downloads are a great way to help you do just that! Have your web person create a download link which requires a name and email address to download the file with an automated thank you message which either allows them to download directly or sends an email with the file.

That allows you to accomplish two things - provide valuable information which makes you look like a hero to the consumer and you get a chance to add an email address to your opt-in database! Talk about your win-win! Have fun - and get those price reductions!

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