📋 Don't Go If You Don't Know: Before Every Listing Appointment

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If you don't know why the seller wants their price, you shouldn't go to the listing appointment. If you don't know how long homes take to sell in their neighborhood, you shouldn't go. If you don't know about the builder down the road offering more house for the same payment, you shouldn't go yet.

Most listings that sit were in trouble before the agent rang the doorbell. Tim and Julie's rule is simple: don't go if you don't know. Today we walk through the mindset that wins listings in a nervous market, the seven-step listing process that makes preparation automatic, and seven things to know before you walk through any seller's door, so the odds of being asked a question you can't answer drop to about zero.

What all of us in sales fear, deep down, is being asked a question we don't know the answer to. You don't need to live in fear of it. Most sellers ask the same set of questions, and if you know the answers before you walk in, you walk in with confidence. The chance of being asked something you have no answer for is about zero. That's the whole point of "don't go unless you know." These questions are part of the Premier Coaching system, specifically the pre-listing pack.

Even with a past client, even with someone in your sphere, go in expecting to sign the listing. Maybe not that night, but certainly in the future. "We'll see how it goes" isn't a plan.

In many markets, sellers are nervous about whether their house will sell, so they're more selective about who they list with. Listings from centers of influence and past clients are still the easiest to get, so keep doing more of that. But you may find that a seller who would have listed with you automatically two years ago now makes you compete. It's not a vote of no confidence in you. It's a vote of fear about the market. You have to earn the business, and a sense of entitlement or a disorganized approach will cost you the listing. That's on you, not the seller.

There's a second way to lose, even after you take the listing: you didn't ask the right questions, so your strategy is wrong. If the last time they bought, the average days on market was zero, they don't realize it will take longer now.

Preparation is automatic when you have a system. The seven steps:

Skip the pre-qualification and the pre-listing pack, and your odds of failing on listing appointments climb sharply. The seven things below live inside steps three and four.

A recent recruiting call shows why simple beats elaborate. A prospective agent spent 20 minutes laying out a web of passive lead plans: social media, content, a lot of time and money spent waiting for leads to arrive. Tim asked him to search his MLS for every expired listing since the start of the year.

Over $500,000 alone, the count came back at roughly 5,000, averaging somewhere around $750,000. The commission potential in that one market ran into the tens of millions. Then the simple plan: five active listings at all times, about two selling per month, an average commission around $15,000. That was more than double, closer to triple, what he was on pace to earn. He could see it clearly, but his brain wanted to make it more complicated.

Expireds are the strongest proactive lead source right now, and the next few months are an unusually good window to work them. You can generate a pre-qualified listing lead for free by phoning them (letters help, but the phone is best).

Find out what they want, what they need, what they think the house is worth, and what they owe. Pre-qualify once the appointment is set.

Property records often show the mortgage, but not every lien appears. There may be a second mortgage, a private loan, or a tax issue. Find out, because you need to build an accurate net sheet. And know whether the seller is barely breaking even. In some markets, anyone who bought near the peak around 2022 may be losing money on the house, in some cases a lot.

Look at the subdivision, not just the town or zip code. A neighborhood can behave very differently from the city as a whole, with more days on market or fewer. It can also vary by side of the street, age of the house, and amenities. Don't get caught flat-footed when a seller says, "I see your comps, but my lot is an acre and yours are half-acre." Otherwise the seller will have better comps than you.

This sets expectations for you and the seller. For sellers who are also buying, which comes first? How long will it take? Will they need a lease-back? After five-plus years of a hot market, most sellers expect to sell fast, so walk them through both versions:

"Let's say we sell it really fast, maybe an offer this weekend we can't refuse. What would that do to your plans? My job is to beat the odds, but the market says it could take 90 days to get the first contract. What if it takes 90 to 120 days? What does that do to your plans?"

You can lose deals either way.

Is it based on the original list price, or the price after it was adjusted to align with the market? Show the seller both. Say a house was listed at $1,000,000 and should have been priced at $925,000. It sold for $920,000. The final ratio looks very tight, but the original ratio tells the real story.

Some competitors overprice to win the listing, then brag about a ratio based on the last list price. Show the seller the original price, the final list price, and the true ratio. And remember the language: it's never "lower the price." It's positioning the house in alignment with the market's expectations.

How many homes like your subject property are you actually up against? Not just in its neighborhood, but in competing neighborhoods. Which neighborhoods pull the same buyers? What else would a buyer look at the same weekend?

Look within the school district or within a few miles. You may not know about it, because it isn't in your MLS. Go find it. If you're listing at $500,000 and a builder has a $700,000 house with a 3-2-1 buydown that starts the buyer's rate three points lower, you need a strategy. Builder incentives right now are, in Tim and Julie's words, bonkers (Julie even found a builder throwing in a free golf cart). The market also naturally slows in Q4, so don't be surprised.

Ask in the pre-qualifying call: "Mr. Seller, ideally, how soon do you want the house sold?" Most sellers have a specific answer, and you adjust your plan accordingly. A short timeline leaves little room to play out the price.

Advanced tip: the sellers who don't give you a straight answer are usually the most motivated. They don't want you to know. Use this:

"Mr. Seller, I appreciate that there's no definite time frame. Just so I'm clear: if I show up with a buyer after we've listed, right price, right condition, the buyer you've been hoping for, and they want to close and take possession in the next 30 to 60 days, will that create a problem for you?"

Then stop talking and listen. The real motivation comes out. Motivation is the whole game with sellers. A seller who isn't motivated is very hard to coach into pricing right, positioning right, or even accepting a great offer, because they have no place to go.

Once you know why they're moving, you can keep the appointment about them and their situation. If you're there to solve the problem, you have to know what the problem is. Sometimes he's motivated and she's not, or the reverse. You need both on the same page, or you won't get the right price, and price determines your outcome. Have those discussions and ask good questions.

The full "don't go if you don't know" checklist has 11 points. The remaining points, plus the scripts and questions that go with all of them, are part of the pre-listing pack inside Premier Coaching. A major Premier Coaching upgrade is also on the way, including an interactive AI coach built on Tim and Julie's coaching. $1 for a 7-day trial at premiercoaching.com.

Five concrete moves:

One: write down the answers for your next appointment. The seller's number (what they want, need, and owe), their timeline, and their motivation, before you go.

Two: pull the neighborhood-level numbers. Subdivision days on market, plus the list-to-sale ratio on both the original and the final list price.

Three: map your competition. Competing neighborhoods, new construction within a few miles, and the current builder incentives.

Four: rehearse the timeline script. Practice the 30-to-60-day buyer question until you can ask it, then stay quiet.

Five: pull your expireds. Search your MLS for every expired listing since January, count them, do the math, and start phoning. Get the pre-qualifying script and pre-listing pack inside Premier Coaching.

Most listings that sit were in trouble before the agent rang the doorbell. The seller's number, the neighborhood's real days on market, the true list-to-sale ratio, the competition, the new construction, the timeline, and the motivation are all knowable before you go.

Sellers in a nervous market make you earn it. Go in expecting to win, follow the seven-step process, and don't go unless you know. Get to work.

Ready to stop guessing and start producing?

🎯 Start Premier Coaching (free trial): premiercoaching.com
💼 Build wealth with Tim's eXp team: whylibertas.com/harris
📲 Elite Coaching — text Tim directly: 512-758-0206

If you walked into your next listing appointment already knowing the seller's number, the neighborhood's real days on market, and what the builder down the road is offering, how many listings you've lost to "we'll think about it" would you have signed instead?

— Tim & Julie Harris

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