What I’m Thinking While You’re Interviewing Me

By Kelly DeBrosse | eXp Realty | 23+ years serving Raleigh, Wake & surrounding counties

When I meet with homeowners who already know they’re going to sell, it’s a very different appointment from sitting down with someone who is still trying to decide whether selling makes sense. These sellers are ready. They may be interviewing agents, they have questions and they want to know what I’m going to do for them. After introductions, I usually either sit down and talk for a while or walk through the house first and then sit down. If they have questions, I’m happy to let them lead. I know what I need to cover before I leave, so I can always circle back. What I really want to hear first is what’s on their mind.

While we’re talking, I’m already doing quite a bit of work in my head. As I walk through the house, I’m looking at what I think it needs, what those things are likely to cost and how long they’ll take. I’m weighing that against what the sellers want out of the house, when they need to move and whether the timeline we’re talking about is realistic. At the same time, I’m getting a feel for what matters most to them. Is it price? Commission? Are they concerned about everything that needs to be done before we list? Do they want to participate in every decision or would they rather turn the project over to me and have me manage it?

You never really know what the one thing will be that makes a seller decide you’re the person they want to work with. Like most things in life, it’s personal to that person and sometimes difficult to predict. That’s another reason I don’t want to spend the entire appointment talking at someone. I want to know what they’re thinking and what matters to them.

At the same time, I’m already thinking about what happens when their house becomes the one being evaluated.

Selling a home is certainly about marketing and advertising, but it’s just as much about knowing the house itself—its structure, its condition, what needs to be repaired, what doesn’t, what those things are likely to cost and whether spending that money makes sense. In the beginning, I think of it a little like a beauty contest that is ultimately weighed by value. Buyers are going to compare your house to everything else they can buy for the same money. I need to understand where we’re going to win, where we’re going to lose and what we can realistically change before we put it in front of them.

Once I’m hired, we make a whole-house list. There are things I know I’m going to recommend, things we need more information about and things we need to get estimates on before I can tell you whether I think they’re worth doing at all. Getting an estimate doesn’t mean we’re doing the work. It gives us the information we need to make the decision.

I don’t like to spend a dollar of a seller’s money until we understand why we’re spending it.

If we’re considering putting $20,000 into preparing a house, I want a reasonable expectation of what that $20,000 is going to accomplish. Sometimes we go through the entire process and decide the right answer is to do almost nothing and sell the house as-is. Another house may make sense to fully prepare because the condition, competition, price range and likely return give us an opportunity to reach for the highest market value possible. There are plenty of possibilities in between.

It isn’t always a quick road to that answer. We may need estimates. We may need to learn more about something we found in the house. We need to look at the competition and understand what buyers are choosing. There can be a lot of questions that need to be asked and answered before I’m comfortable recommending that someone spend $20,000, but I don’t see that as slowing down the process. That’s what gives us enough information to have confidence in the decision.

Once the work is complete, I hire an appraiser to measure the home and provide us with a floor plan that buyers can rely on. I hire a professional interior designer to come in and stage the home before photography. Then I hire professional photographers who are at the top of their field for still photography, video and drone photography when appropriate.

The images are one of my highest priorities because for most buyers, that is our first opportunity to introduce them to the house. Before they ever pull into the driveway, they’ve probably already seen the home on their phone or computer and made some kind of decision about whether they want to see more. I think excellent photography is an expense that gives a great return, but to get great photographs you first need to give the photographer a great product to photograph. Picture day may be the first time the buyer sees our work, but we may have been working toward that day for two weeks.

When I sit down for the presentation, I bring examples of all of this with me. I bring our Zillow Showcase marketing and examples of Realtor.com Premier marketing. I bring before-and-after photos from previous homes we’ve prepared so sellers can see what we started with, what we changed and what the finished product looked like. I also bring market data and examples of our sales successes. I don’t think someone should have to take my word for what I’m describing when I can show them.

The market data is also where we get into the conversation everybody is waiting for—value and sales price.

I rarely like to “own” a price as though I can tell you exactly what a buyer is going to pay for your house. I can’t. What I can do is give you the data, show you what has been happening, look at what buyers are choosing and what we’re going to be competing against, and then use 23+ years of experience to tell you what I believe is likely to happen.

We talk about the strategy behind the number too. If we’re considering $599,900, I’m probably going to explain why I would rather be at $600,000. I’ll show you who and what we’re competing against at one price versus another. I’ll usually give you what I believe the best-case and worst-case scenarios look like. If we try the more aggressive price and I’m wrong, what might that cost us? If we take the more conservative approach and I’m wrong, what might we leave on the table? How much time do we have to find out? What does the seller’s own timeline allow us to risk?

I’ll tell you which direction I think makes the most sense and why. Then you get to decide.

There is another part of these appointments that sellers may not realize is happening. While they’re deciding whether they want to hire me, I’m also deciding whether I believe I can do what they’re asking me to do.

I have a few very close friends in real estate, and this is one of the places where we run our businesses very differently. They want the listing. If a seller wants to start higher than they recommend, they’re comfortable taking the listing and having the price-reduction conversations later if the market doesn’t respond.

I’ve always said I’d rather be poor and right than rich and wrong.

There’s an expression in real estate called “buying the listing.” Basically, you give a seller the price they want to hear in order to get the listing and deal with bringing the price down later. I won’t do that. If I’m sitting at your kitchen table already believing the price you want is unlikely to work, I don’t want to take the listing with a plan to spend the next two months convincing you of something I already believed the day we met. To me, that means I failed to properly lay out the most realistic options before we agreed to work together.

That doesn’t mean I’m always right. I’m making an educated guess based on the information we have, the market in front of us and thousands of transactions worth of experience. The market can absolutely teach us something new after we list. Competition changes. Buyer activity changes. Feedback may tell us something we didn’t know. When the information changes, our decisions should change with it.

What I don’t want is for nothing to have changed except that the market has now confirmed what I already believed, and suddenly I’m calling my seller asking for a price reduction.

I met with a couple recently that I really, really liked. I wanted to help them and I genuinely wanted to work with them. The problem was that I couldn’t get comfortable with the combination of what they wanted for the house and the condition it was in.

In my opinion, the house needs somewhere around $30,000 in cosmetic work to compete where they want it to compete. Without doing that work, I don’t believe the price they want is close to where the current market is going to put the value.

They decided to go with another agent and agency, and I was disappointed. I still am. I liked them and would have enjoyed working with them.

I’m also relieved.

I fully expect to see that house come on the market somewhere around 10% higher than I believe the market will support and needing substantially the same cosmetic work it needed when I walked through it. Maybe I’ll be wrong. I hope I am. I would genuinely be happy for them if another agent gets them the result they’re hoping for.

I just didn’t have enough confidence in that outcome to sit at their table and tell them I did.

If it doesn’t work out the way they hope, I’m relieved that I won’t be the person who let them down. I would rather lose the listing after an honest conversation than get it by creating an expectation I don’t believe I can meet.

That’s probably the part of my listing presentation that isn’t actually in the presentation.

The seller is deciding whether I’m the right person to sell their home. I’m looking at the house, the work, the costs, the market, the timing, the price, the expectations and the people sitting across from me and trying to determine whether I believe I can finish the project in the way they expect it to be finished.

If the answer is yes, I know exactly how much work I’m willing to put behind it.

If I’m not confident I can get there, I think you deserve to know that before either one of us signs anything.