Use these listing scripts for home sellers that want to find a home to buy before putting their home up for sale.
Today, I’m going to talk to you about the listing scripts that will help you motivate your seller leads to list their home now instead of waiting. Somehow, this is still an issue that comes up for a lot of Realtors. Of course, we all know that you must list first and then buy in a red-hot seller’s market. And yet, home sellers simply don’t realize what a huge mistake it would be to wait to list their home. As their Realtor, it’s your job to educate them!
VIDEO: Listing Scripts for Sellers That Want to Buy a Home Before Listing
Home appreciation is only going up
For several years, home appreciation was at around 7%, on average. Last year, it went up to about 9%, and this year 10% was projected, though it looks like it will be closer to 15%. This means that housing prices are going up at least 1% per month. Some sellers consider waiting two or three months to list their home “until the kids get out of school” or for some other reason. You must educate your clients on why waiting is not a good game plan.
When you are running through your listing scripts with sellers, this should be a part of your script. You must talk to your sellers about home price appreciation.
Don’t just tell them, SHOW them
Infographics, like the one on “Annual Appreciation Home Prices” above, should be a part of your listing scripts. In all honesty, they should be a part of all of your scripts, to both buyers and sellers. This is the best way to ignite urgency in your clients. You are showing them with cold hard facts that now is the best time to buy and sell. Waiting for a month or two to pass to see if “things cool down a bit” is unwise and simply not based in reality.
In this low-inventory market, you must teach your clients to be aggressive. And the only way they will be aggressive is if they truly believe what you are telling them — that now is the time to buy and sell.
Waiting to list until a replacement home is found
This is a common objection that Realtors are handling right now. If you’ve got a client like this, you have a huge problem. Your seller is essentially telling you that they are going to wait to list until they find their dream home. In other words, they are going to make their offer contingent on their home being sold. This is an absolutely crazy idea in this current market.
Here are some points to use in your listing scripts to a client that wants to wait to list for this reason.
- “Are you financially able to sustain two mortgages at once? Over 95% of home owners can’t sustain two mortgages either. They have to sell their existing home before they can buy their replacement home.” (If the answer is no, you move on to some of the points below.)
- “Let’s consider getting you a rental while you take your time to search for the perfect house. We need to list right now in order to have the best chance of being able to make an offer, without contingency, on the house you want.”
- “Contingent offers are simply not competitive in this market.” (You tell them this in your listing appointment so that right out of the gate they know that this isn’t gong to fly.)
- “No one is going to accept a contingent offer right now. Imagine if we put your house up for sale and you get thirty offers, and one of them is contingent. That would be the first offer we would dismiss because essentially, it would mean that now we have to sell their house, too. We would be completely at their mercy.”
Listing scripts for explaining why your client should list now
Here is the process that you can explain to your client, demonstrating to them that you deal with this issue all the time.
- “We put your house up for sale. If you sign the contract today, I will get your listing created. We will start marketing it in our office as a “coming soon” property. Then, we will get photography and staging done. We will get everything in place to push it to the MLS and promote it across the internet and on social media.
- During this time, we are going to be looking for houses like crazy.
- Once your listing goes live on the MLS, thousands of agents will see it. We will start to book showings. We will start to get offers.
- During this time, we are still on the hunt for houses.
- Offers will start to come in on your house.
- By this point in the process, 75% of our clients have found a replacement property. In all likelihood, you’re going to find your house.”
Why does this work? Well, it’s true that your client hasn’t felt much pressure to seriously look for houses until now. When you create this timeline and have their house live on the market, they will feel the urgency they need. Your client will be motivated to look hard and try to find their replacement house. You can light a fire under them by using these listing scripts, and not just telling them, but showing them with helpful market-related infographics.
Seller contingencies
Another option to teach your clients about is using a seller contingency when listing. In your listing script, you can explain it like this. “This would mean that you are selling your home contingent on you finding a replacement property. If you don’t find a replacement property, you don’t have to sell your existing house! No buyer on this planet is going to care because right now you have a house for sale that they want.”
“If you don’t find your replacement house, you won’t be homeless! You can stay in your house until you find your replacement house. And, you can also ask for an extended closing period. You’re the seller. You can call the shots with how your house is sold because we are living in a seller’s market.”
One more option for your seller: rent your house back! This is always an option if your seller can’t find their next home.
Want to learn more about ICC?
- Enroll in the Seller Lead Conversion online course. Learn how to use your sphere of influence to turn leads into listings. Packed with tips, listing scripts, tools, and techniques, this mini course gives you the skills you need to get seller appointments, field phone calls and in-person meetings, handle objections and close the right way, every time.
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