When listings are taking longer to sell — which hasn’t really happened in a very long time — it usually happens in buyer’s markets or as we’re heading toward buyer’s markets. As people are getting their price expectations shifted downward, listings take longer.

And quite frankly, as agents, we just have to carry more listings. We have to get used to it, which is hard because you’ve got all these sellers who are upset. We start thinking we’re going to try harder to sell that house. But agents don’t sell houses. The house sells the house. All we can do is price it right — or have patience. That is it.

Now, the condition of the home can help, but that really falls under price. You can always reduce the price to account for condition.

We’re not selling bags of oranges or salted peanuts on the freeway. This is a house. All we can do is expose it. We bait the hook and it goes out on all these online listing platforms. 95% of home buyers use an agent to find the home they’re going to buy. The other 5% are usually home builders and a small sliver of for sale by owners.

If we’re going to market to 95% of the agents, they’re going to look on the multiple listing service or other online listings. Our job is exposure.

There’s a concept called the Magic Month. In the first 30 days, if you are tracking the online views of a listing, you’re going to see a huge spike. It gets really high, and then toward the end of those first 30 days, it starts to drop off.

We have to get maximum exposure and offers in that first 30 days — or we are already thinking price reduction. We have to show sellers we’re doing our job during the Magic Month. You can go into your MLS system and see how many agent views and public views there are. You can go to the Zillow listing and track the Zillow views. You can go to Realtor.com and track the online views. You can go to Homes.com and pull the report there.

With all of our listings, we have to be doing this every single week and sending that data to our clients every single week. It’s tough to do on your own if you’ve got 20 listings, but if you’ve got an admin, this is part of their regular weekly routine.

The only thing we control is exposure. This conversation has to happen at the listing appointment. When we’re talking about price, say: “It’s up to you on the price. I’m just going to give you advice. And I can tell you right now — if we miss the Magic Month because we’re overpriced, the minute we go live we’re going to get the most exposure we’ll ever get. If we’re overpriced, everybody’s going to look and move on.”

All I can do is put this out there and do the best job with the best photos, put it in the best light with the best information. You’re going to get to look at the MLS listing before it even goes live. That’s our moment to shine — because we don’t get the same amount of views when we reduce the price $20,000. It’s not the same.

We’ve got to look great from the start. That’s our one chance. That’s why we always try to price conservatively — at or even below market. In that Magic Month, that’s when our best shot is to get multiple offers. If we get multiple offers, we can drive the price above market value and get buyers to waive contingencies like appraisal and inspection.

After that, we have to start thinking — we missed the Magic Month. See how I’m setting proper expectations and educating sellers upfront? This is a market most people haven’t practiced in because we haven’t seen it since 2007-2008.

If you want to sell the same amount of real estate, you’re going to have to carry a listing inventory of at least two to three times what you’re used to. And we’re going to have to continuously educate sellers preemptively.

What our admin team does is send out emails every week containing the totals — how many showings we got, total online views for each listing, how many open houses we had, social media posts, any mailers, any prospecting calls around the property, and any showing feedback from ShowingTime or other services. We keep a running tally of all of it.

Online views are the most important part. That’s where everybody finds out about listings now — they looked at it online. If nobody is showing the property but it’s getting a lot of online views, we have a problem.

Here’s the framework: if there are no showings in seven to ten days, consider a five to ten percent price reduction. These are NAR showing guidelines. After ten to twelve showings and no offers, consider a three to five percent reduction. And after that, consider one to three percent reductions until you find market value.

If we’re getting a lot of views and no one is showing up, the price is the problem. Everybody’s looking but no one wants to come see it.

If we’re getting showings but no offers, we’re closer — but it’s still a price problem. The buyers showed up but didn’t think it was worth it for the money given what they’d have to do to fix it up or change it.

Now, if you’ve got a unique property — maybe a $10 million listing or a rare ranch setup — it’s not necessarily about price. Maybe it’s patience. A unique buyer is going to be required, and those expectations have to be set at the listing appointment and reinforced consistently.

This is your listing and closing checklist. We tell sellers the last five things we completed on the listing checklist and the next steps coming up. Same when you’re under contract — here’s what we did, here’s what’s coming up, and here are the key dates and deadlines: when contingencies need to be removed, when the appraisal is, when closing is. That’s an email every single week.

We are running a business. If your clients are calling you with a lot of questions, you’ve already got a customer service problem. Clients should not be calling you. If you ever have to call a company you’re working with, it means something’s wrong or you weren’t told something you should have been.

We have to be preventative. Every single Thursday, that admin is sending out an email explaining all of this. And maybe even leaving a voice message: “Hey, this is [name] with [team]. I sent you an email today with a lot of updated information. Take a look. If the email is self-explanatory, no need to call back — but if you’d like to, I’m here. We’re going to keep plugging along. Thanks, hope you have a great weekend.”

That’s what stops people from calling you on the weekend. If they have to call you, they’re just as upset as you are. So if you’re getting a lot of calls from clients, it means you’re not getting out in front of their questions enough. Phone calls from clients are not a good sign — don’t pride yourself on answering them promptly. They shouldn’t be happening.

That email is a form email generated by your admin explaining all the information with bullet points every single week for every single one of your listings. And you’ll find that sellers will start calling you to request price reductions — you won’t have to talk them into one. They’ll say, “I think we better drop it. The views are going down. We’re five weeks in and no one’s even looking anymore.” And they won’t blame you, because you’ve already educated them. You’ve shown them what you’re doing.

They know. They’ve been educated. 95% of buyers use an agent. We’re marketing to agents, not the public. Most people don’t know that. Tell someone outside of real estate that you market to other agents — not directly to buyers — and they’ll be shocked. But that’s how it works.

That’s the format. It’s just an Excel spreadsheet that can drop right into Google Sheets, which goes right into your Google Drive folder for each property labeled by address.