Episode 46 - How to get 8.5% more money for your listings!

1. Intro & Thank You:

• Almost a year of the If You List, You Last podcast!
• Thanks for listening, sharing, and downloading.

2. Key Topic: Avoiding Costly Phrases in Listings

• Learn how simple phrases can cost homeowners up to 8.5% of their equity.
• Phrases like "price to sell," "motivated seller," and others can negatively impact sales.
• Tips on how to avoid these mistakes and protect your clients’ equity.

3. Market Update:

• Quick mortgage market overview:
  • Interest rates between 6% to 6.25%.
  • FHA rates as low as 5.25%.
• Upcoming Fed meeting and its potential impact on the market.
• How current global events, such as hurricanes, strikes, and wars, might affect the real estate market.

4. Research & Data Insights:

• Realtor.com study: How certain words in property descriptions impact pricing.
• Learn about market statistics across various cities and how they affect home sale prices.
• Examples of how these phrases can cause significant price reductions (e.g., up to $57K in Little Rock).

5. Pro Tips for Agents:

• Research listings with specific phrases in your MLS and use them in your listing presentations.
• Show clients how avoiding these phrases can help them save money.
• Be the expert in your market by backing up your claims with data.

6. Conclusion:

• Recap: Stop using phrases that devalue listings.
• Focus on smart pricing and being a resource for sellers.
• Remember: “If you list, you last.”

📢 Join the Conversation!

• Join the Real Estate Asset Advisor Facebook group to share thoughts, ask questions, and get involved in discussions.

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Visit our website to watch replays of our Wednesday "Elevate Business Briefings" at: www.RealEstateAssetAdvisors.org

Download a copy of my book, "If you list, you last!" at www.IfYouListYouLast.com

Transcript

Hey, welcome fellow listing agents. Bob Mangold, the listing coach here with episode number 46 of the If You List, You Last podcast. Can you believe it? Coming up on almost a year now that we've been doing this. As always, thanks for listening, sharing, and downloading. Today, we're going to talk about how adding simple phrases to your listings can cost your homeowners up to eight and a half percent of their equity, you.

And what you can do to avoid that so grab a cup of coffee and settle in Now this won't be a particularly long podcast today it's not that much that I've got to say about it other than it's critical that you do understand this information. Just a reminder, make sure you join our Real Estate Asset Advisor Facebook group so you can join in on the conversation.

Share your thoughts, comments, or maybe you have questions on any of the topics that I discuss right here on the podcast. Let's do a quick mortgage market update this week. Because there's not a lot of news to give you. The markets pretty much are trending. In trading in a very horizontal fashion, very close to the 25 day moving average up and down, which means you got your interest rates between six and maybe six and a quarter percent.

FHA rates can be down to five and a quarter percent right in that range. So the good news is that's trending.  We're waiting for job numbers to come out this week. Again, job numbers have can have an impact on the market, even though they're complete BS. And again, we've talked about that before, but we'll see what happens.

But again, I don't see any major spikes up or down in the market for right now. And then we'll see what happens two days after the election. I believe it's maybe a day after the election where the Fed meets again, whether they cut 25 or 50 basis points, that will have an impact and that will help. But again, I will tell you my anticipation by the end of the year, you're going to see rates under 6 percent in that five and three quarters to 6 percent range.

Nothing's changed my thoughts on that. The amount of activity in the bond sales the mortgage backed securities, bonds the 10 year bond things of that nature All pretty much staying the same. I think we'll see a slower creep go on And then quite honestly guys, there's a lot of factors going on right now We just had the hurricane in florida, north carolina, georgia, and Thoughts and prayers out to anybody listening to this in those markets.

You have the Longshoremen that are on strike. You have, now have a war, a three, three pronged war in the Middle East. The elections, so there's a lot of stuff going on. It could have a big impact on both the mortgage market, and quite honestly, folks, the real estate market. As you think about this Longshoremen strike.

Guess what, guys? If we can't get steel and we can't get supplies and equipment and things like that, it's going to impact construction in the new home market. It's going to have a big impact, right?  So the best I can tell you, fasten your seatbelt. We're going for a ride. There's a lot of stuff going on.

But nothing's really changed my opinion based on tracking mortgage backed security and 10 year bond charts. I still am going to stick with that prediction five and three quarters to 6 percent by the end of the year. Okay. So let's get started and just talk about What not to do in your listings now where I got this information from folks was actually realtor.

com They did a study on how Phrases that you use in your description of a property Can actually impact the price as much as eight and a half percent  or just under thirty eight thousand dollars off a median priced home So you simply making a mistake Like using the word price to sell  Motivated seller  any of those kinds of things can have a huge impact now The crazy thing is the discount ranges or the difference in price to sell when using that language Can be as high as 23.

1 percent in Little Rock, Arkansas, to just 3. 2 in Orlando, Florida. But across the 38 markets,  there's a statistically meaningful discount. The average is eight and a half.  Now, the shared the share of listings with price to sell in the description, or really any words along that line,  ranges from 1. 9 percent on Long Island to 6.

7 percent in Sarasota, Florida. And then metros with a higher share of price to sell homes on the market tend to have smaller discounts. Compared with metros with a lower share, right? Really what that means is that the sellers needed to offer some kind of discount when they really needed to sell the house, right?

So one of the worst things you can do in my opinion as an agent even if they need to sell the house  Is to use that kind of language, right? Divorce forces sale, motivated seller, bring me an offer now Any of those things Are going to impact your client by an average of eight and a half percent So here's one of the things that I recommend Knowing that a don't do it b.

How do you use that to your advantage? i'm going to share in the description of the podcast the article that I got this from  So that you could keep it and make it part of your listing presentation And then what i'm going to recommend to you Is that you take before you go on a listing presentation or you could just take and you know Do it almost at any time Go and search your MLS for listings that have those kind of words in it, right?

Price to sell motivated seller divorce forces listings etc And you could have that available to share with people Hey, one of the things folks we're going to make sure that we never do is use this kind of language And let me give you an idea why this is so important, right? It equals an eight and a half percent discount But to give you an idea, this is what the consumer never sees. 

And so you can show them the MLS listings with the language in there,  showing the price to sell and do that. And the question that I always have asked a seller for this, because I've talked about this for literally for decades in a listing presentation is, Do you think the sellers really know that language is in that MLS listing? 

And if they did and they understood it could impact eight and a half percent or on the median price home 38, 000 less in equity  Do you think they'd approve of you putting that language in there?  And so these are conversations that I recommend having with sellers because well, what does that do for you?

It makes you Appear as because you are the expert in real estate you spend time researching this kind of data You spend time listening to podcasts like this so that you can be on top of the market That's what being an expert is all about, right?  And so when you can back up this documentation with the sources in which you get that, and then also show examples where people are not, or agents are not. 

Respecting that discount. That's a big deal folks.  And so in this article, this is a great thing to show them again They're using, geographic south southwest, etc But to give you an example like in little rock arkansas with that price to sell in their listing description  What that means?  Is a fifty seven thousand four hundred and ninety four dollar discount 49, 000 in St.

Louis, 79, 000 in Charleston.  So when you understand what you're doing that, if you've listened to anything that I've ever taught in terms of classes, you'll always hear me say, the words we use matter. This happens to be the words that we use in a listing.  And so stop using price to sell and stop doing all those things. 

And that's why the Home Boss process of what we do to list properties is so powerful. We use price to drive traffic.  And so consequently, We don't use that kind of language. We're creating a more of a buyer frenzy Than creating like a buyer frenzy with people looking to steal a property, right?  But understanding what you're doing to cost your consumer equity, and again guys we live in this litigious world let's say for example that you didn't talk to the seller about putting, motivated seller, price to seller, whatever it was in your listing agreement, and the seller found that out.

What  if they go get a lawyer?  Those are just things you shouldn't do as a matter of principle in business, but it's also to protect yourself. on top of it.  Now, here's the thing guys, if you experience fewer price to sell properties in your market, let's say you, you go into your MLS and you look at, Hey, there's not that many.

You go, Oh, not a big deal.  Here's what we can tell you. When there are less properties that say price to sell, expect larger discounts in the list to sell ratio.  Why does it work that way? I don't necessarily have a great explanation, but what I can tell you is it's what the data shows that realtor. com hold from all of this. 

And so just understand that, we're in a different market than we were in certainly two years ago, even a year ago. And I will tell you, it's different than even three or four months ago. I think there's so much waiting so many people waiting on the results of this election. Nobody knows what's going to happen.

Nobody knows how this is all going to shake out. Now you start adding all these other things in and wars and strikes and everything else. I just think the consumer is afraid right now.  And so we have to understand we've got to be patient with these things. And price your listing to sell, as we talked about last week, but then use the right listing the right language, right?

Again, if you're in a market that you have the largest share of price to sell listings, right? Again, I'll put the link in there so that you can see this, but we'll consider a buyer in Phoenix, right? They have a lot of new or recently built homes A property that is in less than average condition,  they say may need to be priced lower.

Folks, I will tell you, it does need to be priced lower.  Because with all else being equal, in order for that buyer to consider buying the property, because there are a lot of other average or above average quality homes on the market. That's all it is. We talked a little bit about that on last week's Podcast price your home to sell it's a different market and if it's not in great condition Guys, you're not getting full market value like you were in 2020 in 2021 It's not that kind of market anymore.

So you need to take and be aware of what's going on in your market, right? I talked about Doing a zip code analysis where you actually break down by zip code in your market. What's going on? What's the average length of time? What's the median sale price? What's the the average time on market?

What's the list to sell ratio? But you need to have that prepared when you go and talk to people about listings So you can help them make a better decision on pricing the home.  But above all else, don't think that you're going to help them out by saying, hey, price to sell. Why don't you just price the house to sell and not say it?

Does that make sense? Hope told you this didn't have to be a particularly long podcast.  Because on some level, I think that there's some common sense in there that just allows you to do that, right? To make sure that we do business in the right way.  And  just use your head in today's economic environment.

Like you gotta be the master of data of what's really going on in your market so that you can become the resource for your sellers to be able to hire the best professional, to get the max amount of equity that they can get, even in this environment. Make sense? So I hope that helps and we'll talk to you next week.

And remember, if you list, you last. Talk to you next week