KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Essential Listing Agent Negotiation Frameworks to Maximize Client Market Profits

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Summary:Chris Craddock breaks down tactical negotiation strategies tailored specifically for listing agents. Agents learn how pricing aggressively and strategically launching listings on Wednesdays prevents stale days on market. Craddock explains why accepting offers early damages seller leverage and details how to eliminate escalation addendums in favor of strict "highest and best" offers to drive up sale prices. Additionally, he shares scripts to keep buyer agents emotionally invested while keeping agent egos completely out of the negotiation process.

I see a lot of real estate agents brag about is I got a house under contract in four hours. Well, let me just say this. If that's you, I apologize about the fact that I'm about to offend you. That is a terrible strategy. Welcome to Uncommon Real Estate, where it's all about finding creative solutions for real estate agents and investors. In exclusive mastermind conversations with some of the brightest minds in real estate, you'll learn how to earn an extra six figures a year. Don't follow the herd.

Be uncommon. Here are your hosts, multi-millionaire real estate agent and investor, Chris Craddock and Jeff Safright. Welcome to another episode of the Uncommon Real Estate podcast. I'm your host Chris Craddock and I am here today to talk about one of my favorite topics negotiating, whether you are buying properties for yourself,

whether you are negotiating for buyers or sellers, negotiating is one of the most important tools out there. And what I want to share with you today is how do we negotiate in a way that wins for ourselves, our clients, other folks? So we're going to talk about negotiating tools, but we're going to talk about it in terms of a listing agent. How does the listing agent negotiate? That is really the key that we're going to be looking at today.

Let's jump right in. So here's what is super important. If you are a listing agent, you've got to understand the tough thing, you already start off losing one of the rules of negotiating. The person who speaks first loses, the person that anchors loses. And when we list the property, we put it out there with a price tag. So we are already leading everything up. We're negotiating.

We're saying what the price is that we want for a property. So we're losing. then we've got to figure out how do we get the most money for our property here are a couple of core principles number one days on market is the enemy of price you've got to remember that days on market is the enemy of price when we are looking at at the days on market we've got to understand if we overpriced a property the first thing that a buyer is going to say i mean come on you've all been through properties, right? You know, the buyer will say, how many days has it been on the market? Why do they ask that question? We all know why they ask that question because they think if it's been

on the market for a short period of time, I'm going to have to compete for it. If it's been on the market for a long time, I can get a deal here. Well, we know that regardless of where the price is, they're asking that question because they like the house. They like it enough that they're thinking, okay, is it a deal? Is it something that I want here? And so days on market is the enemy of price. So we're looking at that at the house saying, okay, we do not want to overprice a house. Right. So that is a negotiation with the seller to begin with. The second thing is when you are negotiating on a property, what I like to do is I always like to have a range, right? A low, middle, and high end range for what I'm looking to sell a house for.

And, you know, I personally like to put my own properties. If I'm flipping a house, if I'm selling one of my rentals, I like to put it at a low range of the price. And I always like to put it on the market on a Wednesday. I know there's been studies out there that say Thursdays are the best days to go on the market. But I really do believe that Wednesdays are the best days by far. I just see it. And I know that that tends to be the day that I see more people looking online, thinking about the weekend, not working. So I like to go on on a Wednesday. And so go on on a Wednesday. And, you know,

one of the things that I see a lot of real estate agents brag about is I got a house under contract in four hours. Well, let me just say this. If that's you, I apologize about the fact that I'm about to offend you. That is a terrible strategy. Why? If you if you got it sold in four hours, You should not be bragging about that. Maybe it sounds like a brag, but what it is is somebody that doesn't understand negotiation. It means that somebody was so excited about it that they wrapped it up before anybody else could hear about it. So what I say is you want to go through the weekend. And if you are a good buyer's agent, you're going to put a deadline.

I just was speaking on this on Monday for our Redux team huddle. What I shared was that one of the ways that we won during COVID, when prices, were literally escalating about 15% from the comms was telling our agents, hey, put an offer a very good price and put a deadline of four hours on it before we move on to another property. And when we started doing that, I was told this by a mentor to me, but I was like, oh, there's no way it'll never work. Like that doesn't work. We started doing that.

You know what started happening? Our offers got accepted right away. people like, oh, this is a great offer. Okay, well, we'll take it. And what I also knew is if they didn't take it, it would probably escalate another $10,000 or $15,000. So that was the crazy thing, was the deadline worked. Well, it works for your buyer and it works against your seller.

That's also one of the reasons why we say, hey, we've got a deadline through the weekend to all the buyers. It gives them the chance to get through the weekend and get everything done. So that's one of the big keys there is that you want to get as much time as you can, exposed to the market. But if you go too long, then it starts becoming a stale listing. So that's why I like Wednesday with a deadline on Monday. That gives it the whole weekend to have exposure to the market.

Periodically, I've seen on the second weekend people getting a very strong offer. But usually if it gets through the first, first weekend. Offers do not get better. They tend to get worse after the first weekend. So that's one of the big keys there. If we're going back to what we're saying and what the script is, we set ourselves up to win by putting it on the market on a Wednesday, price it aggressively. Then we want to get it so that we tell people, hey, we're going to be accepting offers on Monday. We're meeting with their client Monday at noon. So please have us have all your offers by Monday at noon. So you get the offers in by Monday at noon. And then you go to the next level, which is if you have multiple offers,

which you probably will, if you price the property well, you go back to everybody and say, hey, we're looking for a final and best. But we do not want an escalation addendum. Why don't we want an escalation addendum. An escalation addendum is great for the buyers. It's terrible for the sellers. And so we've seen this over and over again where like one of my favorite stories was we were listing a house. The comps were probably about 735 and we listed at 725. We got three offers. One at 725, one at 734 and one at 740. So one was above and all of them had escalation addendums. everything one of them, started at list price and escalated up. So then we went back to everybody and just said, hey, look, the seller has asked us for a final

and best from everybody. We want a final invest. And one gave me such a hard time about it and said they weren't going to do it. And I was like, look, this is what we want. So if you put an escalation in denham, we're not accepting the escalation addendum. We're just taking the final invest one number. And also, I mean, it is tough because if you get. some terms good, some, like, you want to be able to, it makes it just easier.

But the key to negotiating is if you're negotiating against somebody else, you know where it is. You want them to negotiate against themselves. Negotiate in a vacuum. So that is one of the keys there is if they negotiate in a vacuum, then they don't know where everybody else is and can't say, okay, I'll just do a little bit more than somebody else. So what we do is we say, hey, final and best. And that one property that where we listed at 725, one stayed at 725, one escalated up to 740 or changed their offer to 740. And then one, this was crazy, changed your offer to 815 and waived everything.

Everything. Like everything. So it was essentially like a cash offer with a massive earnest money deposit. Well, if they left their offer the way that it was originally, what they would have done. was they would have had a escalation in denim and paid whatever it is. The other one was 740. They would have paid like 7.42.5. But our clients made way more money because nobody knew what the other people were offering. And they just gave the best they want. And honestly, when I'm working with buyers, one of the things that I always say to them is, and this is what

a good buyer's agent will do is, is say, find what your dang it number is when you're negotiating with, when you're getting a buyer to give their final offer. So what's a a dang it number. A dang it number is like, where are you where you will not say, dang it, I would have paid that price. And don't try to squeeze out a few extra dollars if you're in the multiple offer situation. If it's the perfect house for you, this isn't the time to be cheap and say, oh, I saved $1,000. Like, that's dumb. You're buying a super expensive asset. Saving $1,000 is dumb. Great. Hey, you want to save $1,000. A thousand dollars over 30 years is how much to potentially miss out on the best asset you have.

So what we say is, and we'll talk through buyer, how to negotiate well for buyers later. And I say as a listing agent, what is the dangant number? What is the number where you say, and I will say this to agents, I'm like, just ask them what their dangan number is. Where if it's one penny over this number, you're like, all right, well, I wouldn't have paid that anyway.

But if it's a number where it shows up And maybe the person that said they'd go up to 740 was like, dang, I would have paid 742. Well, they go to 742, right? What is that number? If they see that somebody else paid 741 and they're like, dude, I would have paid at the extra $1,500 or $2,000, I would have paid that for this house. Then do it, right? So that's the whole key there.

Now, how do we negotiate? That's the other question. So if you're a buyer's agent, you want to negotiate verbally. Just you want to be talking it out with them, finding out all the information you can, having that conversation. If you're a listing agent, you want them to put it in writing. You put it in writing because as soon as you put it in writing, they're invested, right? So when you're talking verbally, they're not as invested. They're just kind of figuring it out.

But as soon as you put it in writing, the agent has spent half an hour drawing up the offer. The buyer has spent half an hour to an hour reading the offer, signing the the offer, signing the earnest money deposit, getting the pre-qualification letter from the bank or getting their proof of cash, if it's a cash offer, whatever it is, showing their proof of funds. Right. So they've done all this work and now they're invested. So once you're invested, that's when it's just easier for them to say, hey, what's a few bucks more, right?

And that to me was one of the things that I learned as a listing agent. was once you can get somebody. And I think about, I always just put a word picture in my mind. And it's because I've seen so many buyers come in. And sometimes it's the husband that just falls in love with a house, like a man cave or a backyard or whatever it is. But a lot of times, like, I see the wife come in and she like starts nesting. She'll see the kitchen and be like, oh, my gosh, I would love this kitchen.

or looks out the window of the kitchen into the backyard and says, oh, man, I just, I can see our family like growing up here being so happy. And then they have to say, all right, 10 grand more. Well, what's 10 grand? All right, fine. I won't go to Starbucks this month. If you look at what it costs monthly over, over 30 years, don't go to Starbucks. Don't get DoorDash one night, whatever it is, and you can afford it. So that's that whole idea is get people to buy in emotionally. And this is one of the other keys to negotiating is when emotions go up and intellect goes down. And so you don't want them to be like worried and penny pinching. You want them to emotionally get excited about the property.

And we've all been there, right? We've all bought things where we paid more for it than we should have. And you're like, oh, man, this is crazy. But on the other hand, real estate is a good investment. I think about the first single family home that we bought. We bought it for $690 in 2006. And within a year, it lost $140,000 in value. And it had gone way down.

But I just got word. It's worth almost one one right now. It'll be paid off in September because we ended up putting a 15-year note on it when we refinanced it when rates came back down. And the reality is we have a great property now. It's just a really, really great property. And yeah, did I overpay at the time? Probably if I would have waited a year, it would have been. It would have been great, but I didn't.

You just can't if it, you know, if, if, if on things. And you know that it's, it's really good to get into it. So anyway, that's how we need to be talking about stuff with our buyers. But as a listing agent, you want the buyer to just get emotionally invested, right? If you're just talking about it, then they'll say, ah, no, no, no. And just think about it. How does a car dealer work? Do they negotiate over the phone with you?

no they want you to come in they want you to sit in the car they want you to smell the new car smell they want you to feel it why because they want your emotions to get involved well as soon as you start signing the contract you start dreaming you are dreaming and so that's what you want as a listing agent is for the buyers to dream so let me go over the the keys to negotiating as you remember if you're a listing agent you want to you want them to put it in writing 100% put it in You want to price it at a place where people are excited to go under contract early because we know that days on market is the enemy of price. You don't want to accept something early. You want to let it go through the weekend and get multiple offers so that then you can negotiate them against each other without knowing what each other is offering.

We don't want escalation addendums. We want the we want them to negotiate against themselves. And then finally, you want the buyers to get emotionally invested. That's it. Once they're emotionally invested, they are ready to go. Game on. They'll pay more. And then you can get them, get them moving.

So with that said, that's the key there. Here's the last thing that I'll also say is when I first started early in my career, and even now, sometimes I get emotionally involved. Here's the thing. get your ego out of the conversation. It is not about you as much as, listen, I love to win. I love to negotiate. I love to win.

I love to battle. But I literally have to tell myself, this is not about winning the battle. This is about getting your client the best deal. And as soon as your emotions get involved, you start doing stupid things. And I've seen that with agents where agents start yelling at each other. Agents start getting mad at each other. agents are like, no, I don't want what's best for my client because I don't like this agent anymore. I don't like these buyers or I don't like these sellers.

And then all of a sudden, you're just in a bad situation. You don't want to be there. That is not where you want to be. Make sure that you are pushing yourself to be the better version of yourself when you're negotiating. Don't get your ego involved. Don't make it about winning. Make it about the client. And one of the things that I will say when I'm negotiating, I will just say, we've got to

be the adults in the room here. It seems like our clients are getting emotional and we got to be the adults in the room. And I say that even if the agent is being emotional because of the fact that it calls them to a better version of themselves and it reminds them that they're a professional and that they're not supposed to get emotional about these deals. Our clients can get emotional, but they cannot get emotional. Otherwise, they're in trouble. So I'm like, look, we're the adults in the room here. I know my seller wants to sell the house. Your buyer wants to buy the house. How can we get that done for them without getting emotions involved. And honestly, it calls everybody to that better version.

It brings down the emotions of everything. And I'll tell you, that is a place where it doesn't work well in the negotiating. Like, you want a buyer's agent to be emotionally invested if they're thinking about their commission and thinking, oh, man, I want to get this sold because I'm about to earn a commission, sure, then they'll push it through. But if they're thinking, oh, man, now I'm locked in a negotiating battle and I need to win, and I need to beat this person or this person's a jerk and I want to stick it to them, which this may not sound like you or may not sound like other agents,

but I promise you this is what happens over and over and over again. And agents blow up deals that shouldn't be blown up. So that is my take. I just spent way too long explaining it, but I'm telling you, you've seen it before and don't let this happen to you. There we go. Listing Negotiation 101, making sure that you are getting the best. number for your client that you're you know you're helping your client win you've got to get them to

price it well otherwise you're man you know selling a stale listing it's it's like freaking charlie brown and the rain rain cloud following you around when the house has been sitting there for six months and you're like oh dear lord just please sell please sell so you don't want that to happen all right there we go there it is how to win as a listing agent and if you have any thoughts on this Give us an honest review. If this has been helpful, that's great. If it hasn't, let me know that too. And would love to help.

If I can do anything for you, please reach out my Instagram handle at Crad Rock. I still answer my own Instagram DMs. So feel free to reach out directly. Happy to help. Happy to serve and happy to help you kick butt. Go get it. Until next time, go live uncommon. Boom.

Thank you for tuning into this episode of Uncommon Real Estate. Subscribe to the podcast to stay up to date with the latest mastermind conversations from Chris, Jeff, and other uncommon real estate industry leaders. If you love this podcast, please write us a review. And to fast track your real estate career, go to chriscratic.com.