KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Agent Strategies & Sales Tactics

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

And welcome to another edition of the nerdy agent podcast. I'm your host, Luke Pedersen, with my brothers and fellow nerds. We're back after a week off because last week we were at Zillow unlock. Oh, yeah. Which was super fun. I thought you were saying a Vikings reference there because it's going to get posted next week and we're back after a week off this week. Oh, because the Vikings are on a buy.

So the Vikings are still the only undefeated team in the NFL when this comes out. Are the Chiefs on a buy this week too? Oh, yes, they are. They're on a buy? Oh, dang it. Okay, well, they're one of two. I was hoping the Chiefs would lose. I was really rooting for them to lose

just because I want the Vikings to be the only undefeated team. You know what I did think was funny if we're going to get on a Vikings rant? Is now everybody saying we're the worst undefeated team like at 5 and 0 of all time? Isn't that the most Minnesota sports thing to say about a Minnesota sports team? Is that what they're saying locally?

I haven't heard that. No, no, nationally. Why can't we just be good? I don't understand. Everyone seems to say we're good. I'm everything I'm reading, but I, I'm still super neutral. They'll be good. They'll be bad some weeks. They'll be okay. We're going to win the Super Bowl. So I'm going to start out this week. We're going to talk about listing strategies, what you should be doing to help your listing sell, especially as we get into the Q4 market that might end up be a little bit slower. You might have some stuff that sits a little bit more stale on the market. And what you can do to continue working for your sellers versus just tossing on the MLS and hoping and praying that something good happens. To start, I want to do a would you rather because I just got off the phone because I will be putting a house on the market.

market, rushing it to market Friday because we just found something to buy. And we were talking pricing. And I was curious, would you rather price a house at $299,000 or $299,000 or $300,000? Would you rather price at $299 or $300? Well, $299 and $299. Depends what else is on the market for me. In that scenario, I would absolutely be under $300. I think there's a significant perception issue when it comes to $100,000 ranges versus non. So people think $299.99 is a lot cheaper than $300, in my opinion. So I would price it below $300. I think it just depends on the market, to be honest.

If there's similar prices, I'll try to be different most of the time. Oh, so if there's three other houses at $299, you'd try and be $300, so you look different. Or like $2.99. I mean, some people will make the argument for the $300 because people will look like in a chunk of $300 to $400. but how many clients do you guys have that actually buy in the bottom of their range? Not a chance. It's true. That was the one thing I said was there's not really a data point on pricing at like $299.

There's no like information and market research saying that that's a better price. The only thing that I would say though is. I do know people price search in round numbers. So three to five. What if you only get one offer the first weekend? If you're at $2.89, you're going to get $2.99. If you're at $2.99, you're at $299. nine, which is $900.

$900. $900. It's a decent amount of time. You should absolutely throw the nine on there because people think they're the same price. That's actually an interesting. I like that argument. I just think, especially at $100,000 breaks. Like I just, I priced the house at $8.24.9 last weekend.

I could have priced that at $8.25. And I don't think there's a significant perception difference between 825 and 8249. But when you're talking about $100,000, the first number gets bigger, right? So it's, it goes from a two to a three. Big difference. So it does, I think, in those scenarios, create more of a perception. There's study, I mean, there's a lot of pricing studies on this kind of stuff. There's a reason why, not houses, though.

Yeah, but there's a reason why. Pricing grocery stores and shopping. The way they do, Target does it the way that they, everyone does it this way. It, whether or not it's house related or not, that, that same perception of value changes things. My only argument with that is that it's not buying a T-shirt at Walmart. The pricing and the thought put into buying a house is significantly higher. The brain still operates the same way. Yeah.

So, well, it sounds like AJ's unknown and Josh is 299. Yep. Especially. I think 299 or 299, depending on what else sounds like. It also depends on the situation. So this is we talk about this all the time is having thought beyond just like, well, what does the market say up here we should do? It's like, well, it sounds like your clients want to move the house pretty fast because they just bought a house. So then they want to have this one sell pretty quickly so that they can get the proceeds from it, probably for the new house.

Especially if they're quote unquote rushing it onto the market. So in that scenario, I would err on the side of pricing it more aggressively, quotations. $100 less. Josh says $289. I might even be like $294.9. I don't know. Oh, sure. You're saying, we're already, 300 is going to be already doing that.

But that situation matters every time, right, in terms of how you're thinking about things and how fast and how quickly and et cetera what they need to have happen. For agents out there that aren't on a team, just before we get into listing strategies, just because we're talking about pricing, the one thing I would highly. recommend against would be like a 305. Worst price ever. It's the worst price ever. You do want to be on 25K breaks if you can.

I mean, 315 I don't think is terrible because if you think it's worth that, that's not a horrible price. Yeah, you got to justify. 330, 305. You just got to know what area you're in and where the breaks are, right? Like if you're in St. Louis Park, pricing a house just over 300 probably isn't going to have that massive an impact

because there's probably not that many buyers that are looking up to 300 because there's not that many houses. But if you price it at 405, now you look like you have egg on your face. Right? I like that. Yeah. So you got to know the area you're in. But to Luke's point, if anyone didn't catch that, we know people shop in five,

tens, 25s, but mostly when they're shopping listings, you're looking in 25s. And so if there's a price break, if you're pricing right above the 25 break, you're essentially potentially ruling out people that are going to set a max filter and you're going 5,000 above that price, which isn't giving you that much value for who you're removing out. And if your price at 300, 305 is still very much an like a getable price. So there's no reason to go just a couple thousand dollars above that price break that you're looking at. Correct.

So let's get into the meet then. So we want to talk about listing strategies, mostly what you should do post house on the market, unless you want to start from the beginning. But I mean, staging a house professional photos is pretty sure. Well, I think the main question. I would ask anybody who's looking to become a listing specialist is do you have it written down when you get a listing contract you have it written down what happens now and if you don't that should probably be the first place that you start when it comes to listings because I think so

tell me more about what that means well I just think so many people get a listing and they go okay now what and then they don't do it the same every time so when I talk to sellers I talk about I ask them like have you seen the Ray Kroc McDonald's movie I knew this is where I always ask him that question And I'm like, I don't compare us to McDonald's in any way other than the way that we operate our business. Like, I'm not telling you that we make cheap burgers, but we operate our business in that same fashion because you know if you go to Florida or if you go to Connecticut or if you go to California or if you're in Minnesota and you order a double cheeseburger plane, I know what it's going to taste like. Every single time, it's exactly the same. If I want that double cheeseburger plane, I know that I'm not going to like be in a different state, order it and then get like, oh, this one tastes weird.

It's not salty or it's different or whatever. And it takes the same amount of time. It costs the same amount of money. I know, like, I know what to be prepared for. And so I think so many people in real estate, and honestly, in listings, it's, I mean, transaction coordination, it's extremely important. I'd argue listings are as important or more important is they don't recreate the perfect listing.

And then they end up with an inconsistent product and an inconsistent result. So our starts with the listing gets, how does it even get turned in, right? And then it spits off a long task list. We don't need to go into all of those things. But I believe that the marketing that we do is in the top 5% of the market. I tell everybody that. I say 95% don't have a solid system that actually is trackable and follow. You can even follow.

But the way that we run it is very, very much consistent. You could even argue that just a solo agent that doesn't have the steps in line might get a listing contract and might not get it withheld in the MLS in time. Because they might just three days goes by and then their SOL because they got to sign a new contract now, right? That task wasn't put in it. It wasn't even there, which is as basic as it gets, but I do think, I do like sharing that because I do, that is one thing that AJ specifically over the last, what, five years has done a really good job narrowing in is the exact steps that take, that happen when we get listings and when

we get offers and accepted PAs. So we don't need to go one by one through every single one of those steps. But have a process, have steps that happen right when you get a listing contract, and then follow it every single time. and have people, right? So like, if you want to do this by yourself, you can, but listings are pretty involved. And so if you don't have people with experience

that have helped you understand what you have to do, you're probably going to make some mistakes. But we have, I mean, we have a listing coordinator, we have our transaction coordinator involved, we have the staging consult person that we work with. And then we have us as the agent. So there's, I mean, the client is getting contacts from multiple different people,

supporting them through the process. So they understand. that they're having the right touch points and that they're getting everything that we promised them on the front end that we were going to provide for them. If you don't have people helping you through this, I mean, I just don't think you're going to be able to create a sufficient experience

to be able to compete with the top 5% of teams within the market. It allows you to create a lot of value for your clients and be really good, but also if you think about it from a business perspective, should you be measuring a house after getting a listing contract or should you be getting more business? Would be the number one question I would ask you. I mean,

I don't have to measure the house. I don't have to do the input form. I don't have to do all of that. And that opens up my time because that takes two or three hours. It's a lot of time per listing, right? When we were out at Unlocked this last week, I mean, we were with Parker quite a bit and he runs the largest team at EXP in the whole country. And his big thing, right?

He always talks about this is like you can free up your time by hiring really good people to keep doing the things that you feel like you were doing, but maybe somebody else can do for you so you can focus your energy somewhere else. And shocker, they might just be better than you at that thing. Exactly. Well, they probably will be because they'll be hyper focused on that one thing. Yep. So the more that you can really focus into the things that you're good at and then find the

right people to surround you on the things that maybe you aren't as good at or might not be the best use of your time is going to pay off in spades because you'll find other things that you can invest your time in. So outside of having the process, I think I want to get to what happens when we're on the markets, we don't go over on time. But the two things I would say that are most. important pre-market are going to be making sure you do some sort of staging at the property. And you talk about having people. We have somebody that does what we call home readiness

meeting where they go to the house and help the clients stage with their furniture. So how to make the house look as good as possible for photos and for showings. And that saves us time and she's better than we are. Significantly better. That's the one thing I tell people is like that. That is one of the ones where it's like I don't even ever want to touch that because it's not my forte. I'm good at plenty of things real estate related. Design is not one of them. Um, And she's actually absolutely fantastic. My clients love her. And then you take professional photos.

Again, it's really important. I'm hoping if you're listening to this podcast that you do that. But if you aren't taking professional photos, you should pay a spacecrafting or there's plenty of local companies or showing time plus is around. There's a lot of stuff there. And then there's a lot of extra things you can do with Zillow as well. Do you guys want to touch on what those look like? Yeah.

Showcase is kind of the new big thing that Zillow is pushing. And we were at Unlocked. They talked about this. They had breakout session solely on this. So this is a, I think it's a profit center for them in the future. They're thinking of it that way. But as an agent, at least for us right now, as one of the first teams that had access to this, we've seen that it's been a pretty nice benefit for both selling on the front end when a potential seller is comparing us to another potential person to list their house.

We're doing something unique that a lot of other people aren't doing because it costs more money. But it also, in terms of making their house. stand out. I mean, we've seen pretty significant jumps in the number of views that we're getting on our listings. Partly because I think the showcase platform, the way that they do it, just does make the listings pop a little bit. I think it also pushes them to the top. Secondarily, algorithmically, it's, I mean, like when I tell people what I'm doing this. It stars them too when you're on the map. When you have a Zillow search, oftentimes you get emails from Zillow, right?

And they say, hey, check out this new listing. If you think about it from their perspective, if I'm paying Zillow to do a showcase, some extra funds in an area that they're prioritizing. I don't know this for, like, they're probably going to push that listing in those emails, right? So they're probably going to prioritize the people who are spending more resources with them and utilizing this new functionality. We also do what's called a RICO 3D tour. Showing Time Plus now has that as part of their package, but prior we would do that.

We got the camera, right? The RICO camera. And essentially what it does is it gives you, it's not a matter port, I wouldn't say, but it's a 3D clickable, walkable tour. and it also spits out a floor plan, which I actually think is really, really nice because every single listing should probably have floor plans these days, in my opinion.

So you don't have to have AJ in the bedroom in St. Louis Park walking it off and telling you it's 11.5, one direction with his feet. It should just have a measurement down there, which is super nice to have. And when you have the RICO 3D tour, even if you don't have showcase, it does algorithmically push your listing to the top because Zillow does want to push the stuff,

the listings that are adding on and doing more and marketing better than other ones. And now they're going to be rolling out a 3D tour of the exterior of the house soon. With drone footage. It's going to be sweet. Which is really cool. Of the neighborhood. And you can, yeah, you can basically fly around the neighborhood and see what it looks like in the backyards and what the neighbors look like. Was there a name for that or just aerial 3D tour?

I can't remember. They use a drone and then they map it. It's AI. Yeah. Yeah. What we also say, though, is like, I mean, Luke, you went quickly through the photos, but I mean the biggest pet peeve I have of listing agents. Well, there's two.

There's two lists. We'll get to the second one. There's more than two. The two big ones. One is if you don't spend the time and money and resources on professional photos, you're basically failing your client on the front end. People shop on the internet now. They don't shop any other way.

The first five photos is the only way that you have. They really capture their attention. If you do not do a good job with getting the first five photos looking as good as possible with the best lenses, the best photographers, the best editors in the area that you're in, you are doing a disservice to your clients. So spend the money to do that right because, A, it will help you sell your houses more quickly.

You'll make more money doing it better. And B, it's going to actually get you more business in the future because your clients will feel taken care of. If you don't do that, your clients are going to feel devalued and you will not be as successful in this area. It just drives me nuts when I go and I look online and the photos aren't good. I always, I see some of those where it's like this, you clearly took these on your phone.

And I wonder, did the sellers look at the, the listing and think that's okay. I don't know. How do they not get yelled at? I don't understand it. You shouldn't be allowed to. It should be against the rules. And it's like, it's like $400, right? For really good photos? Like, spend that. That's a good use of your funds. 100%. And so then you take the professional photos. You put it on the market. And then once you go on the market, what are those steps that we have as a team to make sure we're still marking this property, still doing everything we can. I mean, you're using the hit counters reverse prospecting. That's an important one, I think. I don't know if all MLSs have that, but ours if they've signed up for reverse prospecting.

In the Twin Cities. You can see that, you know, an agent put a heart on it and you can reach out to that agent. Open houses are one that have become more popular. I think, Josh, I don't know how many people you had to go. This is wild. This is a wild stat. I had three showings on my listing this weekend and three offers. Because I had three open houses and there were probably 40 people that came through the three open houses. Were the people who offered from the open houses? One was from an open house and I had about seven agents with clients come through the open.

They just came the open. Every client had it like. So it was just like it's happening more and more though like the really high intent buyers are scheduling separate showings. But then like I had one couple that the couple that bought the house came to two opens. I had another guy who they came to the showing at 2.31 day. Then they came back to an open that evening. and then they came back the next day to another open.

So it just creates this ability for the house to always feel available. And so people like, yeah, there's neighbors that come through, right? Maybe five or ten of those groups were neighbors. But like there were a lot of high intent buyers coming through those open houses in a way that I don't feel like we used to have it be that way. You know what I just thought of that from an open house perspective? Because we're always in the standpoint of it also is good to get your name out there. And if an unrepresented buyer comes through, it could be beneficial for your business because you could some more business and what have you.

But marketing the property does matter. The one thing that I never thought about with open houses, and this happened with our sister's listing as well a month ago, where the buyer did their showing, and then they came back through both open houses, I think it was. You actually will create more high-intent buyers because an agent might not be able to bring their client through three times. It's a pretty high, a lot of time taken for that.

But if they come through one showing, they can just come back through the open houses, and then not only are you allowing them to see it again and be more high intense, but it's probably going to help you in any inspection periods, right? Because you're going to be less likely to get a cold feet situation, because they've already seen the house so many times that they know what they're gaining into. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's one of the perks of having as many agents as we have on the team because I didn't have to sit in three open houses.

I sat in one. But we just allowed, I mean, just was so available. But it also helps the sellers in a weird way because they're not having to get kicked out, like on an hour's notice over and over and over again. they get a lot of the volume consolidated to these windows. And I've always, you know, historically said, like, open houses don't sell houses to clients. Like, that's more of an agent-facing thing. But I might have to rethink that because it's been kind of interesting both the last two sales.

And also, once you get back to that whole like 30,000 foot versus micro setup. With open houses, there's certain scenarios where it makes more sense that a house would sell Vian open versus not. In both the case of Hannah's house where they didn't. have a garage so it was not going to hit a lot of portals. It might not sell during an open. And in the case of this one where this is the highest sale price in the history of this area, you know, people probably got filtered on their portal searches, but they still got an email from Zillow because they were looking in that area. And they're like, oh, I can go to the open house. And so you have to be thoughtful about like, does this house fit as like it's going to be a really

viable open house selling versus a, no, this is going to be a traditional, you know, agents coming through, booking showings listing. So then goes on the market. We schedule an open house. We text all the agents. We try to do three open houses the first weekend. If we can. Yes. Have the message the agents that have the hearts.

Then when a showing is scheduled, I think that's a really important piece as well. I mean, you guys know it. We schedule however many showings a week. And it feels like what, maybe 5% less than that of the time. The agent actually reaches out with some sort of information. And then they go on the Minnesota Real Estate Network Facebook group and they say, Why aren't you filling out my feedback form? This is my second pet peeve is.

Let's make sure we explain what it is. No, no, but to the point of where we're at in this process right now, I think too many listing agents get done with the marketing side of this, and then they stop working. I think they're done. They say, I'm going to wait for an offer now. Right? Because the buyer's agents will come through,

and then they will get the feedback forms. And then even at the open houses that I'm hosting, I'm going to sit in the corner on my laptop and say, if you need anything, let me know. I'm not going to sell the house to the buyers that are coming through the open house. I'm just going to sit here. And it drives me nuts because it is your job as a listing agent to sell the house. It is not your job as a listing agent to, or is not the buyer's job to sell the buyer on your listing.

It's the other way around. So you need to solicit feedback. You need to talk to the buyers that are coming through your open houses. You need to talk them about the house. You need to send out text messages before showings. You need to send out text messages or make phone calls and people who heart your listing. Like you need to make things happen for your seller. otherwise you're not doing all that you could be doing to sell that house.

Here's an example of a text thread that I had with a guy who showed my listing for a second showing this week. Hey, saw you booked that second showing. Let me know how it goes. I gave him a little bit information. We like have a lot of the feedback is that the backyard's not private enough. So it's like, hey, we have some bids to make the backyard more private. They're in the supplements. Just keep me posted kind of thing.

And he responded, yeah, I'll let you know how it goes. That's all that stuff. And then the showing came and went. and two hours after the showing had concluded, he still hadn't texted me. So what did I do? Call them. No, I just texted him again.

Yeah. How did it go? What'd your buyers think? And then he let me know. But like, I think so many folks, like you're right, like what would my sellers think?

This house been on the market for so long if I said, if they reached out to me two hours after the showing, and they're like, how did it go? And I'll be like, I'm waiting for the feedback form. I don't know. Buyers don't leave feedback enough.

I'm just waiting to hear back. It's like, no, I immediately had screenshots. I would copy and paste what he said. to me, here's what they're thinking. I'm going to follow up with them again today. I had one this last weekend, one showing on it. I have a fully occupied duplex, a little bit unique situation, but they schedule a showing and I said, here's the lease situation with the rent on the top. Here's the

least situation with the rent on the bottom. Here's what your buyer could do if they want to own or occupy. Here's what they could do if it's an investment only, like giving them all that information, finishes the showing. Text, no response. Text, no response. And I was going, hey, I texted it on I'm trying. I called her. She didn't answer. Call her the next day. And she's like, oh, it was actually her favorite one of the ones we saw. I was like, what? Okay. Well, I sold it yesterday because I didn't hear. Yeah, I'm happy I called you. But also like you have to do that though because then my client instead of me going, hey, I didn't hear anything from her. I'll wait for the feedback for him. I said, hey, I texted. They didn't respond. I texted. I didn't respond. I called them. I'm going to call them again tomorrow.

Then I got her on the phone. And I was like, hey, just so you know they are interested, they're thinking about it. I'm going to call them again tomorrow. And you're doing two things here. One, you're setting really good communication expectations with the seller, right? So you're letting them know I'm on top of this for you. I'm doing my job. And when I do this, every time I get any sort of feedback, pass it along, pass it along, pass it along. Because you want to have those touchpoints so they know that you're on top of the stuff for them. But secondarily, if you get an offer, let's say it's the first week and you get an offer,

how are you going to properly advise your client on what you should do with that offer if you have no idea what the rest of the showings think? right so if I have 10 showings and I'm like I got an offer but like I don't know what the other nine thought of it like should I tell them you should move forward with this you should set a deadline maybe the other nine hated it maybe they liked it but are thinking about it like you should know where every single agent that showed that house where that buyer is at in terms of whether they're potentially in or potentially out because you cannot properly advise on what strategy you should take for negotiating with this offer that's in without understanding what your alternatives. are. So it's just, I don't, it's, I'm passionate about this because I think it's the biggest miss that listing agents make. So then sometimes homes sit on the market, so they're on the market for a couple weeks. It's the hardest part of our job. Hardest part of our job is when they send the market for a couple weeks. Because there's less that you can do, I feel like as a seller's agent. But there is things you can do to advise your clients, give them information. The one thing we do is we call it the weekly activity report. Activity report where we essentially congregate all of the

hit counters on the MLS, all of the data points from Zillow, any ads that we ran out that week on Facebook, how they did. And then we have six targets of six topics, I would say that we discuss that we have our own little, our agents add in, you know, what their opinion on the house is for these six different topics. So the client knows that you're staying on top of it. And I think, I think the most important thing there is that you're just continuing to follow the market. So like Josh said, it's the hardest part. So the only thing you can really do at that point is talk about the marketing that you promised you were going to do. Yep. And then keep up to date on what's on the market, what's selling. You know, like I have to do two of them today.

Like, hey, another one hit the market and sold right away, but it was because it was priced at this price point. Like maybe we shouldn't consider a price drop because ultimately, you know, you hate being that agent who just bangs the price down. But at the, you know, at the end of the day, if you're doing all the marketing great, the house is in great condition and people say it looks great when they show it, but they just don't want to buy it. That's really your biggest lever that you can to actually pull is the price. The price. Because otherwise you're just waiting.

What I haven't talked with sellers is you can drop the price or we can wait for someone else to enter the market that isn't currently in the market. And it depends on time of year when you're doing that kind of game too. Yeah. The line on that is always, you know, in terms of options and how we're thinking about things, I don't like having to adjust price. The reality is I don't hold anything back on the marketing side from the start with your listing, right?

So I'm not like I did this many, I did 75% of my marketing efforts and I saved 25% for if it doesn't sell right away. We're doing 100% right away. So at some point, if it's not selling and the feedback we're getting is X, Y, and Z, the price is really the only lever outside of a couple gimmicky things we could do to help get your house back in the eyes of the consumers to potentially buy it. That went a lot longer than I was expecting it to. Good information. I would say if you take one thing from this and that's a lot of information, you're overwhelmed. just write everything down that you're going to do the next time you get a listing. Can I do one more thing at that process?

I think we're out of time. I got to get that. We're out of time. And that's all we have. And that's all we have this week on the nerdy agent podcast. And as always, remember, be better.