with the previous agent! who couldn't sell it before at a higher price, and then sells it! GEEEEZ!

Rah Rah, you just became a consultant. Send them a bill. BigC

You 'll learn to keep your mouth shut about the price. Lower is all they need to know.

I know, I know, get the comittment to list with me first, then talk about price. Not always easy to do though.

You should ask the people why they didn't list with you. For some reason, they liked the other agent more. Try to find out why (if you can take it). It may be a part of your game you can correct for the future.

Yep, I have learned the hard way as well. I'm going to start telling sellers that I want them to have faith in my ability to sell their property before I will talk price with them.

I don't even go on a listing appointment or discuss my marketing prior to discussing the price of the property over the phone.

If we can't get onto the same page with regards to the state of the market and how that affects the value of their property, I don't want to spend any time at all discussing my marketing (and I certainly don't want to spend the gas and time to drive to their home, spend 2 hours there looking it over and helping them to formulate ideas on how to prepare it for sale). I let my fingers do the walking!

I don't have many listings. I don't want many listings. The listings that I take sell. All of them. My record this year is 4 days on market with 4 offers for the seller to look over on day 4. And we sold it for 20% higher than the most recent comparables in the neighborhood.

I find the more time and effort I have invested into a property/situation, the more I want to try and "work it out" (this hardly ever works, by the way). I'd rather save my time, spend it working with motivated buyers & sellers, and weed the rest out as early as possible.

Less headaches, more closed sales, more time spent with the best clients, higher level of service, more time with family.

If they won't price it right to begin with, you're allowing them to waste your time, effort, and money - and not only that, you're helping to add to the unsold overpriced inventory that mucks up the works for everyone else. One of the best tools I've got in my belt is the ability to say "Given your wants and your situation, I can't help you, but if you call 5 other agents, I guarantee at least 4 of them will list your property at whatever price you'd like to set."

And I sit back and watch their property come onto the market priced $50,000 above market value (usually with lackluster marketing) and sit...and sit...and sit...and eventually they drop the price to what I had told them from day 1...but the market has dropped another 10% since then. I did what I could to help them. I led them to water. They chose not to drink. And that's OK - because I didn't spend any more of my time, effort, or money than was absolutely necessary.

Why would you want a commitment to list with you when they're not willing to price the property correctly? The issue wasn't that you gave them the price. The issue was that you didn't sell them on YOU. If you had sold them on YOU, they wouldn't have gone back to their previous agent.

Stepping off my soapbox now.

Everyone has a different approach. My personal approach is that I don't talk about price over the phone.

My experience has been over and over if you call they will say "How much will you sell it for??" If you give them a number out of the blue you will here (NO THANKS,That's too low. CLICK)

First thing I do before setting an appointment is determining motivation. Why are they selling? Divorce,facing bankruptcy,illness,job loss,estate sale,relocating,facing foreclosure etc. are all strong motivators.

When I know this the goal is to get into the property or meet up with them somewhere. If they have strong motivation they will look at the data more objectively. If it's I am waiting to get my price,I am testing the market,or I want to buy for 50 cents on the dollar you will have an unrealistic client.

If the market has gone down and the sellers even have a strong motivation most will choose to rent rather than damage credit with a short sale or have to come up with huge funds at closing to get the deal done.

As always it's about getting to the core of the problem for the buyer or the seller and seeing if they will listen.

I think low motivation for selling is a bigger key than price. If they are motivated the price will be reduced to sell at some time during the listing.

Price is important but I know many that list maybe 5 to 10 percent higher and knock them down after 2 weeks and it sells because they give the seller the room to answer the "What if I priced it higher question?"

ManFromTheBand: Thank you for your thoughts. They were really quite eye opening. It really made me realize that my time is important and that it's more about the quality of the listings rather than the number. A fantastic insight and a welcome epiphany for me!