KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Sellers Need You to Lead and Make It Rain

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

Summary:This episode provides a tactical and motivational guide on how to lead sellers through the listing process with confidence and authority. The hosts, Alissa and Jessica, emphasize the importance of stepping up as a trusted advisor, rather than just an order-taker. The conversation covers specific strategies for pricing properties, handling seller objections, and creating a strong marketing plan that gets results. The episode is a clear call to action for agents to embrace their role as a leader and a valuable resource for their clients.

I think sellers get together in script practice because they all say the same thing, right? And oftentimes their script is more compelling than our script if we don't practice. 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 Safreight. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Uncommon Real Estate podcast. We're a podcast here

to work on two things. One, being better at our profession, being excellent, being uncommon, being unlike all of the other people that just did a real estate license and act like Uber drivers and just show up. Those that are listening here, we are the uncommon, those that are leveling up that are working better, that are getting better at our craft. And then we're taking the money we make because those that are uncommon are making good money. We're taking the money that we make and we're investing in real estate. And so we know that we build wealth and wealth is when our money works harder than we work. And so the whole purpose of this podcast is how to be better at what we do and take that money and invest in the area that we have an unfair advantage in, which is real estate.

How do we invest in that? Tell you what, if you're a real estate agent, be investing in real estate. You can invest in the stock market, but the majority of your money needs to be in real estate because just like if you sell a Ford, you better be driving a Ford, right? If you're a Chevy salesman, you better be driving a Chevy. So that's the whole deal there. But the other side, too, is every deal that has ever hit the MLS has slipped through a real estate agent's fingers.

So we want to be that agent that is getting those deals, seeing the deal, and saying, man, I'll figure out how to get that. But let me ask this question. What if you have no money? What do you do? Here's what you do. You find people. You find other agents. You find other investors. You find people that have cash, friends, family, whatever, and just say, hey, I've got a deal. How about this? I'll bring the deal. Why don't we split it and get it done, right? I've got my iPhone that's a little old. I could probably still sell this thing for 500 bucks, even though it's a year old now. If I were to say to somebody, hey, I'll sell to you for 50. I think almost every single person on here would buy it for 50 because you could put it back on eBay or

Amazon or wherever we sell things online these days for at least 250, if not 300 bucks, maybe the full 500 bucks because people want it and it works and you're buying at a discount. The same thing's true with houses. So I hope I made my point. It's nothing about what we're going to talk about today. But my whole point that I want everybody to get is buy real estate, buy real estate, buy. real estate. All right. Now, into what we're talking about today, a lot of people may be skipping over this saying, oh, we never have to have these conversations with sellers about longer days on

market. We don't have to have these conversations. If you think that's true, you are not looking at real live data. Let me just tell you this. Our team has, last I checked it was like 73 properties pending that are under contract right now. And what we're seeing right now in the last couple weeks is the market's still strong, but what we're seeing is that we're getting less offers. And I think the average number of offers went from something like six or seven offers per property down to, I think, just over three per property. So we're seeing less offers. And we even are seeing a couple properties that are not getting offers over the weekend that are priced decently well. So I had a business coach of mine over the last week say to me,

I say, Chris, one of the biggest opportunities here is starting to look at potential expired listings. And I'm not telling you, go looking at the expired listings. If that's not your wheelhouse, that's not what we really spend a lot of time working on. But he said, if you look, you're going to start seeing more expired listings because people are going to put their house on the market expecting 14 offers. They go through the weekend and they don't get an offer because they priced it a little high thinking they're going to get a ton of offers. and then boom, they're pissed off at their agent. And let me share what happened last year. I was selling a townhouse of a personal friend of mine, right?

I was in, I'm not in tons and tons of production anymore. I do more coaching and helping. But I still will sell maybe one or two houses a month of just like a close friend. That's like a cumulus me or something like that. But basically, the last townhouse that was sold went on the market at something like, I think it was like 475. and ended up selling with 13 offers at 575. So it was an end unit, but it wasn't fixed up.

Hers was fixed up, a little bit smaller, interior unit. So she insisted that we go on at 575, which was the top of the market. But hers was fixed up, but smaller and wasn't an end unit. And so we went on. And when we went on, we got a couple people through. It was like four people that came through, but it wasn't a lot. This was at the end of the boom last year, right? As it was starting to, it never slowed down last year, but it, well, I guess slowed it,

it did slow down. It never dropped, but it normalized. It plateaued. If you guys remember, the market went up about 15% in the spring. And then as summer rolled around, it just plateaued until this year when it just popped again. And that's going to happen again. And I believe that it's starting to happen now. And so my friend was pissed off with me because she's like,

my neighbor got 13 offers. And I'm like, yeah, they priced it 100 grand lower than you priced yours. And I didn't say that. I said it much nicer, right? But that was the whole thing was we priced it at the top and she was still expecting 13 offers and it to go another 100 grand higher. So when I first was frustrated with her for her just lack of being realistic, then I had to go back to one of my favorite books or one of my favorite kind of sayings is I had to take extreme ownership and say, crap, I didn't ask her about her expectations and I didn't correct her expectations. She wasn't going to fire me because we were really good friends, but she was really upset. And if we weren't good friends, the way it went down because I

didn't set and correct her expectations, I would have definitely been fired. If we didn't have have a relationship beforehand and she didn't trust me and she didn't think I was one of the top agents where I could use that to bring into some realistic expectations where she she then trusted me. It just would have gotten real ugly, real fast. So with that said, I believe that we need to talk about this now because this is where we are in the market. So what does that mean? How do we set expectations. So the first thing that we need to do is, what's that old phrase? It says, anybody that doesn't study history, doesn't know history. I don't remember exactly how it goes. Basically, they're doomed to repeat it. You all know that phrase, right? They're doomed to repeat it.

Well, here's the deal. I already did that last year. Many of you guys that take listings, I promise you, at least one of your people, if you take many listings, one of your people got caught in what I got caught in last year, unless you're one of the few people that, you know, saw what was coming ahead of time, corrected it, set expectations, which if you are, that's awesome, that's the way to do it. But if you go ahead and move forward right now, knowing that we're probably plateauing out without setting very serious expectations, then it's called paying a stupid tax and you're about to pay it and it's very expensive. Trust me, think about how much it costs to lose a listing. Or maybe you're not losing the listing. How

much does it cost to get it sold but at a price that the seller is really unhappy and they think you did a terrible job so you're never going to get a referral from them, which I think may actually be what happens with that one person because I was good friends with her. But if I were to have actually spent the time talking through it, she would have understood. And I don't know that she's going to give me referrals right now because I don't think she thinks I did a great job, even though we be sold for more money than anybody else in the neighborhood. We ended up selling for 610, by the way, I think was the total number of the next one, even though we went on at 575.

So we still sold at, what is that, $35,000 higher or whatever, the number is, $40,000 higher than the neighborhood, but she still wasn't happy because it wasn't $100,000 higher. So let's start with this. I'm a Christian guy. The Bible informs a lot of the way that I see the world. And there's a verse in the Bible that says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. So what does that mean? What it means is, and I've seen this to be true, what it means is she had a hope that her house was going to sell for $675, $100,000 higher than what we listed it for.

The highest in the neighborhood sold at $575, right? I didn't change that. So even though we sold it $610, which was, now I need to do my math, it's $25,000, $35,000 higher than anything else in the neighborhood. neighborhood because her hope was that it'd be $100,000 higher than anything in the neighborhood. And it took two weeks for us to get that, that I made her heart sick, right? Like, she was sick about it. She was upset. Like, I just heard in her voice.

She's so friendly and so nice and so loving. But I heard she, I knew she was upset with me, massively upset with me. So what should I have done if I had to do it over again? here's what I would have done differently. And this is what we're doing now as a team. Number one, right at the beginning, we're saying, hey, so last year, what happened was we had a massive increase in the prices. The reason why the price increase went up was it was multi-faceted.

But one was because interest rates are low. So people were holding on to their other houses. It was really cheap and actually very inexpensive to hold on to their old house. their old houses are rentals. So those aren't hitting the market. Builders are only building about 20% of what they need to build since the crash in 08. So we have less inventory than we need. And then thirdly, we're seeing massive, massive inflation. And real estate is a hedge against inflation because if inflation goes up 8 to 15%, which is what we're seeing happen, and an interest rate is somewhere between 2.75 and 3.5, which is what I was saying last year.

now we're saying three and a half to six percent, we're still seeing that the government is paying you to own real estate, right? Because they're backing the loans here, the Fannie Freddie loans, they're backing those loans. So if inflation, which means the value of your money is going down between 8 and 15 percent, then if you have an interest rate that is at 3 and 1 half to 6, you're getting paid to own this real estate. So that's what is happening there. So that's why that's why people are, we're going up. But eventually it catches up and it normalizes it. It says, okay, so now here's where price is a function of supplying them in.

And so the amount of properties that are out there and the amount of people that are looking to buy have been there. There's not that many properties out there. So scarcity is driving up the price. And now at some point, it gets to a price where all the buyers are saying, okay, this makes sense. And so instead of the price continuing to go up, it normalizes and stabilizes. So that's my role play right there. I like to do a little teaching with the folks because I feel like that is my job to lead them. Sales is leadership. Right. And part of leading them is helping them understand that, understand what the market is looking like because without knowledge or with ignorance

comes fear, right? So I'm getting rid of the fear. So without knowledge comes fear. And with, with certainty, with knowledge comes certainty. So I'm giving them that knowledge, right? And so, so what's happening now is we're now stabilizing. So we're not seeing the crazy price increases anymore. And actually, we're seeing the days on market go up just a little bit. The number of offers have gotten cut in half. So we're still in a very strong market, stronger market than we've really seen in years other than last year. So if we were to take this market four years ago, we'd say, man, this is the strongest market in the history of markets. But when we're comparing it to the Wild West of 60 days ago, it's actually softened a lot. So it's still strong, but it's not

as strong as it was. Right. So when we say stuff like that, we're able to get the sellers to understand that, oh, man, all right, this is, this is good. We're setting expectations. We're studying expectations, hope deferred, we're bringing in their expectations and their hope to the right number. So they're not just finding out when they get a call from you saying, hey, we didn't get an offer. Or, hey, our offer is really low. They're knowing up front, we're resetting that expectation, right? So we're saying that. And then we get into it and just say, okay, so now we need to talk about pricing. What is stuff going for in your neighborhood? And then they say, what do they all say? I think sellers get together in script practice because they all say

the same thing, right? And oftentimes their script is more compelling than our script if we don't practice. So the sellers get together in script practice and this is what their script tends to be. Well, everything's gone on the market for and then they'll say the number that usually is the top of the number. Not always. Sometimes they'll tell you the real list price, but oftentimes, let's just use an example of it, let's say a house sold at 6, 650, right? They'll say, oh, they're going to the market at 650, but they're getting so many offers and it's getting blown up like crazy, right? And so oftentimes, again, most sellers are speaking with ignorance, and then you look at it and you realize the debt house went on the market at 575,

it closed at 650. It's 500 square feet bigger. It's completely updated. So that's when you ask the question, right? Because if you ask the question, they're going to tell you. And then you're able to say, oh, okay, cool. Now, the thing that we learn as a teacher, right, that's what we are. If you think that you are just walking in and just saying, this is what you're doing, this is what you need to do. I'll tell you, you really need to reconsider how you approach your career. And I guess because it's my show, I can say that. So if you don't like that, that's fine. You don't have to be here with it. But that's the whole thing there is that you really need to reconsider.

We are educators. We're leaders. Leaders lead well and leaders lead graciously. So with that said, the way that we lead is helping people self-discovery, towards self-discovery, right? When I got my life coaching certificate, when I was in my doctoral program, One of the things they said is the thing we've heard this a thousand times is that people will retain 90% of what they discover themselves and they'll retain 10% of what you tell them, which I know this show is me, me talking, but you're listening to this voluntarily because you want a self-discover. So you're actually working towards self-discovery.

So our sellers, when we sit here and we just say, oh, no, that house came on the market at 575 and it closed at 600 and it's 500 square feet bigger. it's got about $100,000 with the updates that your house doesn't have. Like, you are telling, right? So what is the way that we can have that conversation? What we do is, what I like to do is I open up my laptop or if you're on a tablet or whatever, but I like to open up my laptop to the MLS and say, okay, let's just look at these houses. Let's look at the houses and compare them, right? Okay.

So we've got your house here and this house. And if I'm an appraiser, I'm going to look at the square footage here. So why don't we look at, and then we have them compared on the MLS. Why don't we look at your square footage? It says right here that your square footage is 2,000 or 1,957 square feet. Is that right? Yeah, that sounds right. That sounds right.

Okay, cool. Well, it says here that the house that we're looking at is 2,500 square feet. Is that right? I don't think it's that much bigger than mine. Well, let's just take a look. Okay, so this room, does it look bigger, smaller? Well, how they look at with these cameras, these fish eye lenses, right? Yeah, I know that model.

It's not that much bigger. Okay, well, cool. Well, let's just look at the tax record. Maybe we can pull up another one of these models and see, is that the same square footage for the other model? Let's just pull up a map of the neighborhood and find some other ones that are like this on the tax record. Oh, look, yeah. So it looks like this model, they're all the same size right here. So I guess it is what we're seeing is that it is the right one.

Is that right? Or would you agree with that or not? Because that's what the tax record looks like. Yeah, okay. Well, man, if the tax record says that, okay. Yeah. And I'm like, well, you want to pull up some more and just check and see? Because, yeah, we want to be sure on this, right?

No, no, no. I guess if the tax record is saying that, okay, that makes sense. All right. So it's about 500 square feet bigger than mine. That's what it looks like on the tax record. here. It's your neighborhood and everything else. That's what we're seeing. Oh, okay. All right. All right. So, boom, now you walk through that self-discovery. I didn't just say, no, it is. I said, let's look at this. Let's, let's prove it. Let's bear it out. Let's do this together. And then this is my favorite thing,

like favorite thing in running comms. Okay, let's pull up the kitchen of this one. Okay, so this kitchen has 42-inch cabinets, new custom cabinets, has awesome black stainless appliances. It looks like high-end appliances, not like mid-range. This granite, undermount sink. There's a lot of good stuff here. Oh, the flooring here is top-notch. It's like five-inch planks and it's just high-end flooring. That's interesting. How do you think this compares with your kitchen? Well, it's a little bit nicer. Okay, cool. Yeah. So just like we're playing in the cabinets, the appliances and the flooring, what do you think that would cost? Oh, maybe $10,000, $15,000, which is like half the price of what it would actually cost.

Okay, cool, cool, 10 to $15,000, that's cool. Now let's look at the bathroom here, the master bathroom, frameless shower, the glass here, really nice glass, really nice tile flooring, inlay tile in the shower. It just looks really, really nice. how would you compare this to your bathroom? This is a little bit nicer. How much you think it would cost to update this bathroom? Maybe 10 grand, which again, about, actually that one, usually the master bath is about,

they'll think it's about a third the price of what it actually is, unless they've actually gotten it priced out to do it. So it's usually 30 to 50 grand for a really nice master, at least here is what I'm saying. Okay, so yeah, like 15 grand. So we're talking like 30 grand difference in price there. and then the powder room. So we're going through each of these different pieces. And we're just adding them.

So basically what you're saying is it would cost about, about $35,000 to $50,000 to do what they've done inside their house. And it's usually actually 50 to 100. But it's fine. You want to let them save face. You never want to point your finger and say, you're wrong. You're wrong. 30 to 50,000.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. And then how much do you think there's a price differentiation? for, because we can look at price per square foot here and just look and see what the square foot ranges for the extra 500 square feet. What do you think the price differentiation is here on, on say a house that's 500 square feet bigger versus smaller? And if you want, I can show the press for square foot. But what do you, what would you ballpark it? Oh, about 30 to 50,000. Okay, cool. So right now what you're saying is we're about 35 to 50,000.

on upgrades and the square footage maybe maybe another 30,000. So we're talking like 80 to 100,000 difference. Is that right between that one and this one? Okay, cool. All right. So if that one went closed at 650 after all the offers, what do you think you're, what do you think a good comp for your house would be? Boom. That's the conversation that we're having. So we start off with what's going on in the market, then we look at kitchen versus your kitchen, bathroom versus your bathroom, flooring versus your flooring. And if you don't know how to estimate that stuff, there's a, there's an app that I really like. It's called Rehab Estimator Pro. And if you use the promo code Chris, you'll get it. I think the first month is a dollar. And then after that, it's like half price. One of my buddies started that.

I think you may have just sold it as well. But that way, you can look and see what would it cost to redo flooring in a certain house size, what would it cost to redo a bathroom? What would it, all the different things there? So rehab estimator pro, use the promo code Chris, and you'll really get a seat like the cost. If you can't walk through those numbers with a seller right off the top of your head, you can pull up that app and it actually adds credibility to it. So that is the basis behind the conversation, the comp and the market conversation with sellers. I'm telling you, if you don't get out ahead of it, if you let them believe that they're going

get 30 offers when they price at the top of the market, when the market is plateauing. We may still have a little bit of going up, but I think we've caught up with inflation, at least for this year. Then you're going to get beat up. And maybe you keep the client, maybe the client fires you. So you lose your commission there, what's your average commission? And you work from $5,000 to, you know, $50,000, depending on whether you're low in market or high in market.

So maybe the client fires you, which, by the way, I still laugh. Last year, we sold in the same 48-hour period. We sold a $2.5 million house in Arlington, and we sold a $12,000 house in Baltimore within 48 hours. It made me laugh really hard. But the reality is that you could get fired, but just as bad is maybe not just as bad, but close to as bad, is they don't have a great experience and they never give you any referrals. And if you don't understand how much money you make from referrals and clients really being happy, I'll tell you, it just means that you don't quite understand the business there. And we'll talk about the lifetime value of a client on another episode.

But with that said, I'm going to wrap us up today. I just want to let you know, please, if this has been helpful for you, please give us an honest review wherever you're listening. Also, I am 100%, a thousand percent offering some time to give a coaching session. I do some 101 coaching. I do a lot of group coaching, but I'm not. pitching that at all, like at all. I'm just saying if you want, I'm happy to jump in and help you really look at leveling up, scaling your business, doing more deals on how to find listings,

any of that stuff. I'm happy to spend a few minutes with you guys doing that because that's my offer to everybody that's a member of our community here. So please let me know if I can do that for you. I'd be happy to do it. People are so generous with me. And that's why I think we grew as fast as we did. So I'm happy to do that for you as well. At Crad Rock is my. is my Instagram handle. But go out, kickbutt, take names, and yeah, live uncommon. See, guys. Thank you for tuning in to 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 Chris Craddock.com.