by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

“Guile creates rancor and delay, ignoring the financial consequences, where an honest broker is a lifeboat in a sea of lies.”

Our story so far:

There are a zillion other things we do for sellers, but we are getting at the essence of what makes a listing move faster and for more money than its competition.

So: Every choice we make maximizes the seller’s interests, but for that reason every choice maximizes transparency and, for lack of better term, velocity of decision-making.

Translation: I make it as easy as possible for the buyer to commit to my listing.

How, specifically?

No guile.

Disclose everything, of course, but not in any way that’s tricky or cagey or coy. Every buyer’s fear in every transaction is getting taken. Obviously, I want to do everything I can to take that fear away, but even before that I want to make sure that I have done nothing to amplify that fear.

And what might you suppose is the fastest, easiest way to make a buyer wary of me and my new listing?

How about the listing price?

Oh, yes! The price is the most important, most powerful statement on your listing, and if it’s a lie, the whole listing is suspect and the house is one-down – at a minimum – before it even shows.

So what does a lying listing price look like?

Just like this: $299,900.

Is the house worth $300,000? Or $295,000? How to tell? Liar’s Poker: Offer $295,000 and see where they come back.

That back-and-forth takes time, even if you insist it does not cost the seller money. Worse, we start with mistrust and slap-box our way to bad will. That will make the repair negotiations fun.

I think that’s dumb. I despise guile, anyway, but its further fruits are even more rancid that the soul-sacrifice required by deception in the first place. You make an ugly first move and then risk making things uglier with every step in the process.

What does an honest price look like?

Like this: $300,000. Or this: $295,000.

The honest price, in my estimation, is the sweet spot value expressed in numbers rounded on the 5,000’s. If you look at closed deals in your MLS, that’s how resale homes sell: Ninety percent or more of the numbers will look like mine – not 900’s, not 999’s and not utterly opaque numbers. Cheaper properties may round on 2,500’s and pricier joints will jump by 10,000’s or in even bigger increments.

But: Buyers and sellers demonstrate by their choices that they trust and can agree to round numbers. Heads nod in unison when they are not confused by the cognitive dissonance of an obviously arbitrary and deceptive list price.

In other words, by hitting the sweet spot with the exactly perfect number, you not only take away the fear of deception and accelerate negotiations, you make virtually all of your competitors look like sleazy gonophs.

I want for the ultimate buyers of my listing to have had nothing but a pleasing experience. They paid more than they expected, ideally, but they never felt cheated or lied to – never felt they were being taken. The upside for the seller – and for me, as well? A frictionless transaction that won’t fall apart.

But to pull that off, my presentation of the home and its MLS listing must seem to be scrupulously honest to buyers from the outset – and from then on until Close of Escrow. I want to deliver a pleasing – and therefore frictionless – experience to the buyers.

Honesty is the best policy morally, but it is just better in real estate, too. Guile creates rancor and delay, ignoring the financial consequences, where an honest broker is a lifeboat in a sea of lies. You can sell faster and for more money just by being honest.

And the best way to advertise your trustworthiness?

The listing price.