The Market Isn’t Covering for Us Anymore

I have had a lot of uncomfortable listing conversations lately.

And if I am being transparent, I do not enjoy them any more than anyone else does.

Nobody wants to sit across from a homeowner and tell them their house may not be worth what they were hoping.

Nobody wants to tell someone who was expecting to walk away with $50,000 that it may actually look more like $30,000.

Nobody wants to recommend a price reduction after telling a seller a few weeks earlier that you felt good about where you started.

I have made those mistakes too.

The market is changing, and sometimes the data we had when we listed a property looks different thirty or sixty days later.

But I keep coming back to one question.

What is our actual job as real estate agents?

Serving Is Different Than Pleasing

I hear this phrase a lot:

“Well, it is whatever the client wants to do.”

And technically, that is true.

The client should always be in the driver's seat.

I remind my clients of that all the time. At the end of the day, it is their house, their money and their decision.

But I think we sometimes stop there.

There is another half of that conversation.

My job is to inform and educate you so you can confidently make the decision you believe is best for you.

That is the part I think our industry can sometimes miss.

There is a big difference between serving someone and pleasing them.

Pleasing a seller might sound like:

“Sure, we can try that price.”

Serving them might sound like:

“We can absolutely list it there. The decision is yours. But let me show you what the market is telling us and what I believe is likely to happen if we do.”

One feels easier.

The other is probably why they hired us.

The Market Used to Cover a Lot of Mistakes

For several years, we worked in a market that solved a lot of our problems for us.

A seller wanted to price a little high?

Sometimes the market caught up.

The marketing was average?

There might still be multiple buyers waiting.

We did not always have to be great at difficult conversations because demand could hide a lot of mistakes.

That is changing.

Now we have listings sitting for thirty, sixty and ninety days, and the easiest explanation is:

“The market is bad.”

Sometimes the market really is challenging.

But before we blame the market, I think we have to ask ourselves a harder question.

What is the market actually telling us?

Look at the data.

How many people have viewed the property?

How many impressions has it received?

How many saves?

How many agents have sent it to buyers through the MLS?

How many qualified buyers appear to have seen it?

Then compare that to the number of showings.

If thousands of people are seeing the property and almost nobody is scheduling a showing, that is information.

Buyers are making a decision before they ever walk through the front door.

They are saying they do not currently see enough value to take the next step.

At that point, there are really two major things we can control:

How we are presenting the property and the price at which we are presenting it.

Those two things have a tremendous impact on demand.

And our job is to help the seller understand that.

The Conversation We Are Afraid to Have

I recently spoke with a homeowner whose previous listing had expired.

During the conversation, we started looking at some of the market data and talking about what had happened while the home was listed.

At one point they said something that stuck with me:

“I wish somebody had shown me this before I listed it the first time.”

They were not angry that the information was uncomfortable.

They were frustrated that nobody had given it to them sooner.

I think that is important.

As agents, we can become so afraid of rejection that we start telling people what we think they want to hear.

We are scared they will not list with us.

We are scared they will be upset.

We are scared they will think another agent has a better answer.

So we avoid the conversation.

But what if the conversation we are afraid to have is exactly what the client is looking for?

Most of the time when I have sat down with clients, shown them the actual data and explained what I honestly believe, the response has not been anger.

It has been relief.

“Thank you for telling me.”

Now they have something they can make a decision from.

They Do Not Need Another Opinion

There is more noise than ever.

Everybody has an opinion about the market.

Social media has an opinion.

Their neighbor has an opinion.

Their family has an opinion.

The internet has an opinion.

What people are looking for from us is not another person willing to tell them what they want to hear.

They need someone they can trust.

Someone willing to say:

“Here is what I am seeing.”

“Here is what the data says.”

“Here is what I believe this means.”

“And now that you have all of that information, the decision is yours.”

That is service.

And I think our clients are asking for more of it right now.

The uncomfortable conversation may not cost us the relationship.

It may be the very thing that creates it.

Because if we truly hold our client's best interest at heart, then telling them the truth is not something we should avoid.

It is our duty.