 Hey, what's up, everybody? Ricky Karruth here. It's going to be a super short video. I just want to touch base with you today, talk about how confusing this market really is, give you three or four tips at the listing appointment that you can use to get and retain more listings, which is exactly what you need to be doing. You need to be stacking listings to the moon. And I'm going to give you some tips today that will help you stack that inventory. But right off the bat, it's crazy because of the confusion out here, we've got Realtor.com telling us that 48.3% more houses are on the market this year than last year. Housing affordability, you know, house payments are doubled since 2020. That's crazy, right? But then look here, we have this happening. This is happening across markets all over the country, right? We've got a real estate agent here in Atlanta that listed two houses. He showed them 88 times. He had 12 offers and he said he didn't even have his sign in the ground. This is insanity. There's so much data that points both directions here. And I think it comes from what I've been talking about with more pent up demand than we've ever experienced in our lives. There's so many 33 year olds right now that turned 33 this year. And it's going to continue for years and years and years. Meanwhile, sellers aren't putting their houses on the market. There were down 30% new listings. They're, you know, they're trapped into their homes with their current really low rate. You've got builders that are also down in certain areas, right? This is all, it's all national and then local. So, you know, take it all with a grain of salt. Your local market is really going to tell you what's really happening. Dig in to your local data. But the fact remains, we've got an unprecedented amount of low inventory. And I believe we have an unprecedented amount of pent up demand. And I think so many buyers because of affordability and because those payments have doubled in the last three years that so many buyers are sitting on the sideline just chomping at the bits, just waiting for mortgage rates to come back down so they can go out there and buy a house. So, we'll see how all this plays out. It could go so many different directions. You know, we do know that mortgage rates follows inflation. Inflation seems to be coming down. There's a huge report May 10th in just a few days that you need to be paying attention to. That's really going to tell us a lot about what's happening with inflation. And then the June report is also going to be equally important. We need to pay attention to this as real estate agents because it's really going to tell us where mortgage rates are going and if we're going to see a flood of buyers into the market, if mortgage rates, you know, ease down, we're going to see that flood of buyers. So anyway, listen, this too shall pass. We got to go out there and build our business no matter what's going on in the economy, in the market. I've always said closings happen every day for the rest of your life regardless of market conditions. I stand by that. It has held true and we're continuing to close deals every month. We're working hard to help our clients, you know, buy and sell. And you know, it's, we're in between spring and summer. So there's a little bit of a lull, but hey, you got to get out there and make it happen when it's slow, build your database, when it's busy, close them deals. So let's talk about listings, listing appointments. I'm not going to dig into the entire listing presentation, the entire listing appointment. You know, I'll just tell you that I show up. I let them show me the house. I'm paying attention to how much pride they have in this property. I'm connecting with them as they're showing me the house. And at the end, I'm asking them why they are selling this house. 80% of how I price a property goes into why they're selling. This isn't a commercial property where it's cold hard numbers. There's a lot of emotion that goes into this, right? And I got to figure out what that emotion is so that I can properly price the property to hit their goals, not my goals, their goals. I'm trying to help them, you know, reach their goals. So 10% or 20% of it, for me, is cops, right? Most of it's going to be motivation, why they are selling. But outside of that, here's a couple of tips that can really help you get these listings and retain these listings, OK? What's the worst thing that you hate as a listing agent, right? It's when one of your listings expires, goes off the market, and then your client there gets bombarded by phone calls from other agents. So let's eliminate that. Let's eliminate that right now. So the first thing we're going to do is, is when we do the listing, after we've established price and all that, we're going to tell them, listen, you know, when I do a listing, you can cancel it anytime for any reason. You want to call me tomorrow, next week, next month, anytime. You have a change of heart. You want to go a different direction. Whatever the reason is, it doesn't matter to me. You want to take it off the market? That's fine. You let me know. Cancelled, right then and there. And I write this in the listing agreement. And at the same time, I'm telling them, hey, you can cancel anytime, but I'm going to continue trying to sell this property until it either sells or you tell me to stop trying to sell it, which gives me the authority to keep that listing forever. I've had listings for two, three, four years that I've sold, and then sold three more because of it, and then referrals from those deals. And it's spiderwebs and snowballs and so many deals, versus if I would have went the traditional route, listed it for six months, let it expire off the market. Guess what then? I lose that client to probably another agent. Maybe the client is loyal to me. Maybe they're not. Maybe another agent comes in there and gets that client, and now that agent gets all that future business. I don't want that. And if I'm calling my seller every two weeks to update them on listing activity, feedback, the market, comps, whatever happening, and I'm building that relationship every two weeks if I'm not talking to them sooner because I'm calling them to talk about showing the property or whatever, if I'm building that relationship and I'm continuing to develop that relationship, and they're OK with it not being shown or not getting sold or no offers or feedback saying the price is too high and they're still OK with it being out there, great. That's fine with me. It doesn't matter to me. If they're happy, I'm happy. I tell them up front, like, you know, if you're going to price it right here, it's a good chance it's going to sit there. Is that what you want to do? Great, let's go. Like, you just want to put it out there and see what happens. I'm all about it. You're not in a big hurry to sell this property. You only want to sell it if you can get their certain price. Let's go. I'm happy with that. Let's sign the paperwork. I'll get by and take some pictures. We'll get it on the market and get this thing rolling. It's not a big deal to me. That person isn't that motivated. But guess what? I'll give you a story that's happening right now. I listed one last year. It was worth $750, listed it for $1.2. That's right, $750, $1.2. We've slowly got the seller to reduce it a little bit here and there. $50,000 here, $10,000 there, $100,000 here. And we had an offer for $8.25. So the markets increased since we listed it from $750 to $8.25. We had an offer for $8.25. They turned it down. But guess what? It's priced right now at $8.99. So the market's at $8.25, and we're at $8.99, and we're getting closer, and we will sell that property. It's like my dad always said, get them on paper and work them from there. I've had a lot of clients overpriced their property, called me two weeks later and say, let's get it down where it needs to be to sell it. I've decided I do really want to sell it, and let's get it done. It's all about just helping them do what they want to do. Now, I'm not saying just go out there and tell them crazy prices and take all these overpriced listings. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is, is don't turn down the listing because a seller wants too much. Because what you'll see is that listing pop up on the market under another agent's name, and then see it go under contract in two weeks, and you think, I should have taken that listing. So anyway, don't let them expire. Keep them on the market. Now, what does this do? A lot of things. It doesn't allow other agents to call your expired clients. And it also allows you to build inventory. If you're keeping all your listings and you're stacking that inventory, then you can end up with 30, 40 listings after a year. So that's the name of the game, stacking inventory. Prices are going up right now. So if you overpriced it today, then it's the right price tomorrow. There's a lot of things that can happen here. If you don't want to take an overpriced listing, please call me. I will gladly take it. I will gladly sell it, pay your referral fee, and then do all the future business with that client from that point forward. That's just how it is. The second thing is, is commission. If you know you're up against a couple other agents, I've used this trick several times. They'll ask me how much my commission is, and I'll just say lower than anybody else's. Look them right in the eye and say, lower than anybody else's. And they look at me weird. They look at me crazy little sideways. And they're like, what do you mean? I said, well, normally I charge 6%, but if you find somebody lower, let me know. Now, I'm not saying that I'll go lower, but I kind of insinuate that, but I'm just saying, let me know. If you know somebody that'll go lower, let me know. And it's interesting because now all the power's in your hands. What happens is, instead of seeing that listing pop up with another agent's name on it at a little bit lower commission, they're gonna call you, the seller is gonna call you before they sign that listing agreement. And now you got all the power in your hands to say, oh, he'll charge five, then you can make a decision. Do I wanna go 4.9? You see, you don't have to go 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5. That's what real estate agents do. Fives, fives, fives. You can go 4.99. And the seller's like, done, done. I'll do that right now. You know how many millions of dollars I made off of 4.9? I can't even tell you how many of these things I took at 4.9 and got the job done and then did so much business with those clients afterwards. Ridiculous. So, yeah, I mean, there's your three tips right there. Overpriced listings, don't be scared of them, right? Just set the expectations with the seller so that they understand what's gonna happen. Don't be scared to say, hey, I'll go lower than whoever. You know, if somebody's gonna do lower, let me know. I'll take a look at it and see what I can do, right? I'm gonna work harder. I'm gonna be the, I'm gonna work the hardest. I can tell you that right now. So, you know, let me know and I'm glad to work hard for you, right? And the third thing is, is don't let these listings expire. You can take these listings, put them on MLS for a couple of years. What do we do with the listing agreement? You can put to be determined. You can put it on there for two years. The seller doesn't care because you're writing it in the listing agreement. This is the verb as I used and I still use. Seller may back out and cancel this contract at any time for any reason. And listing agent has the right to sell this property. I'm sorry, market this property until it either sells or the seller tells them to remove it from the market. Really clear, black and white right there. And the seller feels fine because they don't feel locked in. They're like, sure. I'll just tell you when I don't wanna sell it anymore or whatever the case may be. One out of a hundred will say, I want it to expire in three months. Like, okay, whatever. I put it on there for three months. Let it expire, you know, okay, fine. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. I hope you guys got a lot out of this video. Let me know if you need anything whatsoever. I'm here to help you through whatever it is in this crazy, confusing market. I love you. We'll talk to you soon. See ya.