One of the mistakes I made in my early listing appointments as a new agent was this.

I walked into a homeowner's living room, toured the home, built rapport, and then told them what their home was worth or what they should sell it for.

This didn't always go over so well. One of the things I discovered was that homeowners usually have a number in mind for what they think the home might sell for.

And if, in my expert opinion, I was far off from that number, they would either be insulted or think that I didn't have what it takes to sell their home.

Once I made this change, my seller conversations improved big time. I started taking on a lot more listings and helped many people sell their homes.

So, what is the formula?

Number one, I show them the data. I show them either in their neighborhood or the surrounding area what real people paid for similar homes to theirs. I always want to give my sellers a range when discussing price because that factor is part of the strategic conversation in part two.

This is where we look at other homes for sale in the area that might be considered a competitive product in the marketplace, specifically, how much they need to net and how quickly they need to sell.

I aim to keep this part of the conversation collaborative, not me telling the sellers what they should be doing.

The last part of this conversation is if they decide to go on the higher end of the range that I laid out for them, we again together come up with a plan B if, after listing on the higher end of that range, the market gives us feedback that says, Hey, the homes priced a little too high, we need to go ahead and move down to the lower end of the range in order to get the home sold.