Pocket Listings, Private Exclusive Listings, Off Market Stock, call them what you like, but these are listings where the seller has offered you to sell their property without allowing you to take it to the full-blown open market. This should be seen as a great opportunity, appreciated, and welcomed with open arms because one way or another, they are going to sell. However, we need to first understand what the most important factor is. This is understanding what the seller’s true motivation is. By understanding their true motivation, it will determine how much time and effort you put into the project.
What is true motivation?
There are the obvious examples such as death, divorces, upsizing, downsizing, or relocating for a specific reason. Often times though, there are sellers who refuse to come clean with why they are looking to sell. These are the ones that can be very draining and end up costing you a lot of time and money only to find out they weren’t that motivated and do not need to sell. So as a rule, you should be doing as much due diligence as possible by asking questions about why they are looking to sell. Usually, if the sellers are not telling you their true motivation, it is because you have not built enough trust with them. So, you need to spend more time with them and build that trust. This may mean bringing some buyers through and giving really accurate feedback and service to prove yourself and build trust.
Sellers may also be nervous or wishing to wait to take their property to the market due to a number of reasons. They may be waiting for their children to finish school. Maybe they’re waiting for a new home to be built. They could even be waiting to hear about a promotion or new job prospect that will determine whether or not they can actually afford to sell and move. They may have even had a bad experience with another agent, we all know that the public perception of real estate agents isn’t always a good one.
A bad experience with an agent usually comes down to the fact that the sellers weren’t educated by the agent. They weren’t taught about the various selling strategies or how the highest and best price could be achieved. As a result, the property was taken to the market with an ambitious price, scaring off potential buyers. Another complaint that many sellers have is that they weren’t given real and accurate price feedback from potential buyers, leaving them in the dark when it came to what the indicative selling price should be.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to making sure that you have educated yourself in all of the selling strategies and marketing techniques and are able to, therefore, educate the seller, but even more importantly, are able to spend time with the seller building TRUST and understanding their true motivation in order to be able to help them reach their desired goal.
To learn more about the different selling strategies and the simple ways that you can not only educate yourself but your sellers and buyers, make sure you register for my upcoming FREE half-day Real Estate Brilliance webinar.