3 Ways to Update Your Real Estate Dialogues for a Changing Market
You know what I love?
I love that you – simply by being here to read this – are likely more serious about your business than 95% of the agents out there.
You know it’s important to continually seek ways to improve your skills and evolve with the market. Right now, those skills are more important than at any time in the last 10 years.
In a changing market, your negotiation skills and sales skills become extremely important.
That’s what I’m sharing with you today…
Three ways to update your real estate scripts and skills to match today’s “New Market” conditions. Because the “Old Market” stuff won’t cut it anymore… You understand that, right? If you’re still using those old scripts, there’s a good chance you’re setting unrealistic expectations for your sellers and setting yourself up for failure. Let’s correct that right now…
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Positioning: Contrast “Old Market” vs. “New Market”
How you position yourself and the market can make the difference between a seller choosing you or choosing a competitor, and/or pricing their home correctly or overpricing it.
So how you do it matters…
What’s critical now is to present information by putting it in the right frame of reference. Don’t just show sellers what’s happening right now. Educate them about the evolution of the market spanning the last couple of years. Show them the data: More homes on the market, fewer closings, and price adjustments where applicable.
Then – THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT – refer to previous conditions as the “Old Market” and current conditions as the “New Market.”
This creates a clear delineation and will help them understand that what was happening six months or a year ago is not the case today… That we’re in an entirely “New Market,” the current market.
Finally, always remember: If the property isn’t compelling, it isn’t selling.
One of the most important factors in creating a “compelling” property is price.
How Pricing Analogies Will Help with Objection Handling
No matter how well you position yourself and the market conditions, you’re still going to get homeowners who say:
“I understand the market has changed but I want X price.”
Sound familiar?
Here’s a great tip from Josh Rubin, one of my personal coaching clients:
This objection handling is all about illustrating that the market will determine the pricing of their home, and nothing more.
He first asks them if they own stocks or are familiar with the stock market.
When they say yes, he then poses this question:
If Netflix is trading at $270 a share, can you call your stock broker and say, “I want to sell all my Netflix stock at $500 a share today.”
No, you can’t. Because that’s not what it’s worth in today’s market.
Homes that are similar to yours are selling at X price.
And then, inevitably, when you get this response:
“Another agent said they can get me much more…”
…use this script:
I could line up a thousand agents outside your door, but we’re all looking at the same data and we’ll all come in within one or two percent of each other. So if someone is promising you much more, you’ve gotta ask yourself what they’re up to. Are they just wanting to take your listing to generate a bunch of buyer clients? What’s their motive?
This plants the seeds of doubt in the seller’s mind and gets them to understand that sometimes real estate pricing that seems too good to be true probably is too good to be true.
Be Direct to Illustrate “Old” vs. “New”
Another one of my personal coaching clients shared this tip with me: Be direct.
Shauna Covington sells in Laguna Beach, CA, and she says she tells sellers flat-out the difference between today’s market and the recent past:
In the Old Market, I could put a ton of cushion in the pricing. There was nothing for sale and demand was so strong, people would still make offers and we’d get deals done. But now, in this New Market, we’ve got to be pinpoint accurate. If we want to sell in today’s market, it needs to be priced at X.
Here’s another good “scare tactic” script to get homes priced correctly:
Do you want to get lost in a sea of inventory? Or do you want to price it so well that it sells in the next 30, 60, or 90 days? My recommendation is to price it slightly below other comparable properties on the market. What would you like to do?
One Last Thing: Don’t Overlook This Important Step
The cardinal sin of any new script, dialogue, or presentation is throwing it into action without practicing it first.
Always remember: We’re only as good as the amount of time we spend getting good. We play – and we get paid – at the level at which we practice.
So put in the work, find a role-play partner, or join illūm to access on-demand Video Role Plays to ensure you master these scripts before you try to use them and squander opportunities.
If making money is important to you, up your practice.
What adjustments do you need to make to your scripts? What scripts are you adding in the changing market? Let me know in the comments below.
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