Ep008: What to Expect from Your Listing Agent (Even if Your Listing Agent is YOU!)

Selling a home isn’t just putting a sign in the yard and waiting. In this episode of All Things Real Estate, Chris McAllister and Laci LeBlanc break down what a professional listing agent actually does—step by step—and what you’ll need to take on if you decide to sell on your own.

You’ll learn how to think like the CEO of your home sale (not a homeowner), why emotions can quietly sabotage pricing and negotiations, and how today’s marketing and tech tools (photos, 3D tours, digital scheduling, e-signatures) can either elevate your listing—or amplify the wrong strategy.

Whether you’re hiring an agent or being your own agent, this conversation will help you make better decisions, avoid costly mistakes, and get to the closing table with fewer surprises.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Think like a CEO, not a homeowner: make decisions based on evidence, not nostalgia.

Your home needs a coordinated marketing plan: consistent story + strong presentation across every channel buyers use.

Professional photos matter: not just for “pretty pictures,” but for perceived value and competitiveness.

Prep wins: Chris’s top 3 must-dos are Tidy Up (declutter), Clean Up (spotless), Fix Up (small repairs).

Pricing isn’t a guess: use recent comparable sales, supply/demand, days on market—and avoid “testing the market.”

The first 2 weeks are critical: online platforms reward “fresh” listings; overpricing can cost you attention and credibility.

Zillow Zestimate is a data point, not a strategy: useful for context, risky as a final answer.

Offers are the beginning, not the finish line: financing strength, contingencies, timelines, and closing probability matter.

Quiet professionalism = calm + proactive management: deadlines, inspections, appraisal, lender/title coordination.

Minimum communication rhythm: weekly updates at minimum; after-showing updates when possible (even if there’s “no news”).

P.S. Want more practical tips for buying and selling real estate? Our ever-growing library of books, blog posts, podcast episodes, masterclasses, documents, and other tools is at your fingertips.

Learn More >>> The All Things Real Estate Resource Hub

Transcript

Chris McAllister: Welcome to the All Things Real Estate podcast, where we talk about what really matters when buying, selling, or investing in real estate. I'm your host, Chris McAllister with Roost Real Estate Company, and today's episode is called What to Expect from Your Listing Agent, even if that Listing Agent happens to be you.

So whether you're hiring an agent or thinking about managing your own sale, today's conversation will give you a clearer picture of what a professional listing agent really does and why it matters. And I'm joined today, as always, by my partner in crime, Laci LeBlanc. Good morning, Laci. 

Laci LeBlanc: Good morning, Chris.

Chris McAllister: How are you today? 

Laci LeBlanc: I am great. I'm really excited about this. I think we kind of take for granted that we know what real estate agents do, uh, just because they've kind of always been around, but I think it's shifted a lot, especially lately. So I'm excited to get into, uh, the, the listing agent side of it and what actually kind of step by step they can do for you.

Chris McAllister: All right. Well, we're trying something a little bit new today. You're gonna interview me, correct? 

Laci LeBlanc: That's correct. Yeah. So, um, we, we talk about this a lot on our end, right? Because this is the business that we're in, this is what we do. Um, but I'm gonna ask you to explain some things that we kind of take for granted.

Um, so we're gonna start with, um, thinking like a CEO instead of a homeowner. When you go through the sales process, so you a lot of times will tell sellers they need to think like a CEO and not a homeowner. What exactly do you mean by that? 

Chris McAllister: Well, it means that we, that, you know, if you're gonna sell your house, and this is hard to do, uh, you know, for, for a lot of us, but it means stepping back from the emotions that are associated with my home, right?

My house, my whole life, really. And, and trying to put yourself in the mindset that you want to treat this sale like a business and make business decisions. It's almost like you're running a small temporary company and that little company that you're running for the next few weeks, hopefully no more than that, has one goal, right?

And that's to sell your home, which is normally, you know, for the most, for most of us, our biggest asset for the best possible return that you can get. And when you think like a CEO instead of a typical homeowner, you start to make choices based on data and opportunity, not just nostalgia or emotion. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, I, I talk all the time about how I can never move because I'm so attached to not only like my house, but all the things in it.

Yeah, exactly. And I, so, you know, I started to think about when, if I were going to sell my home, the first thing I would have to do is take all the things out, because that would help me detach a little bit. Um, I, I expect that changing your mindset to where you're looking at it from a business perspective as opposed to, you know, your home, that kind of.

Uh, changes the way a seller makes decisions, would you say that's the case? 

Chris McAllister: I think if you can make that distinction in your mind between, you know, running this as a temporary business and being a homeowner, you get some clarity. You know, you start to, you start to think like, instead of asking what do I want, you start asking, what does the market want?

What does my next buyer want? What does that market reward? So that shift, right, which isn't easy. I'm not trying to say I'm not, I don't wanna be glib about this, but that single shift will help you price, it helps you prepare and it'll help you negotiate like a listing professional who does it every day.

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, I mean, I think that part of what a real estate agent does is help sellers work through the emotional. Part of this, right? So if a seller tell, or if my real estate agent tells me as a seller, you, you gotta, you gotta declutter, you gotta remove all this stuff, then that helps me make that emotional transition.

Um, so if, if a seller's trying to do it by themselves, what, how can they walk themselves through it? How can they stay objective? 

Chris McAllister: Well, we tend to overvalue our memories. And, and I don't mean that our memories aren't invaluable, but we tend to overvalue our memories in that we think that other, other, somebody else and, and another buyer who's interested in the house is gonna feel the same way that you do, you know about your home.

So that's what we mean when we say that people tend to overvalue memories. We're not saying that, you know, memories are worthless or anything like that. It's a, it's a different mindset. It's really thinking about, you know, all the birthdays, all the events, all the things that happened while, you know, you, you lived in and owned that house.

Those are, those are yours and those are yours forever. But quite frankly, nobody else cares, right? So, you know, I try to remind, uh, sellers that buyers are comparing features, right? They're comparing one house to the other, and they're comparing the price. What they're not comparing is how many birthdays we had, how many holidays we had, you know, how many birthdays of school a buyer is going to be able to attach.

Um. Emotionally, and, and, and they're gonna be able to do that very easy, right? Because they're a buyer. It's a little bit harder for most sellers to detach emotionally, but it's a, it's a critical shift in mindset that makes all the difference in the world. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. I feel like as a buyer, you're trying to picture the, the property without all of that.

Even What, what is left after you declutter, after you take away all the, the, they used to tell you to take away all your photos, family photos and that kind of thing. Um, so I guess it's, you know, looking at it really objectively is the, the goal. 

Chris McAllister: It is. And when sellers get too emotionally attached to their home, they start to make some mistakes, right?

So typically when their emotions take over, they tend to overprice their property. They tend to under prepare for showings. They, and, and this is the toughest thing, and the hardest thing, is they tend to take feedback personally. And, you know, anytime you overprice anytime that you, you're not prepared to, to put your best foot forward when it comes to a showing or you start taking feedback.

Personally, I can tell you right now, the market is gonna punish that combination of behaviors. Every single time. You're, you're not gonna get the price for your house that, that you want and deserve. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. So if you don't have a real estate agent and you're selling your house yourself, how can you, um, and you can't, you can't rely on a real estate agent to kind of walk you through this.

How can you stay objective, 

Chris McAllister: but you gotta try to treat yourself like your own client, right? You, you've got to, you've got to re once you get to home on the market, right? And, and you know, you can do it yourself these days, you know, even, uh, you know, Zillow will allow you to market your own home, um, on their site.

But whatever the, the beauty of that is you get a lot of data when you're, when you're marketing a property these days, whether it's your agent doing it via the MLS or you're doing it alone through Zillow or what have, whatever platform you choose, there's going to be data. And even if that data doesn't include actual showings for whatever reason, you're gonna get data on how many views the house gets, how many click-throughs the house got.

You know, did they watch the video? Did they go through the, uh, the 3D self walkthrough? You know, you're gonna get data on what people, how long people are actually viewing your home online, right? So you've got data from the moment you put your house on the market, there's data and you've gotta review that data weekly, if not on a daily basis.

So you gotta, you gotta get focused on what is the market telling you. And sometimes you get that through the internet, of course, via Zillow or what have you, but it's about the data. It's not about your feelings, right? It it, and maybe the question for people to ask themselves is, you know, if this were a listing that I was managing for somebody else, you know, what would I recommend?

I do. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. Well, you know how much I love data. As a marketer, I don't think there's anything more important than data. If you can't back it up with data, then there's no reason to do it or Right. Um, you can certainly try it, but if you can't, you have to be able to measure it. So, um, that's a perfect segue into kind of, I wanted to talk about marketing and how you, you market a home in a way that kind of moves the needle in your favor.

Um, and a lot of people, I feel like think selling a house just means putting up a sign in the yard and waiting for people to, to call you or text you or scan a QR code and go and go to Zillow. But like, what does that really look like now with, with all of the technology we have? Like what has changed, what hasn't changed?

How do you really market a home to sell? 

Chris McAllister: You know, sadly, I think a lot of realtors put a sign in the yard and, and sit back and wait. So it's, it's not just for sale by owner folks. In fact, I would say the for sale by owner folks might, might make that mistake left less often, but I, I, I digress. What you, what you wanna have is a true marketing plan.

And the objective at that marketing plan is to tell your home story across every single channel buyers use, right? So every single website, you know, the sign in the yard, you know, postcards to the neighborhood, whatever it is, you want to be telling your home story. And the key to that is. Professional photos, detailed MLS or Zillow listings, you know, digital ads on social media.

If you're gonna have an open house, there's a lot of strategies that you can, you can research to make sure that what you, your message that you try or are attempting to convey through an open house, matches up with what you have online, even the sign in the yard and so forth. You've gotta have a marketing plan that's coordinated 360, right?

All the way around. It's not a random thing, and it's certainly not just about getting a sign in the yard and sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring. 

Laci LeBlanc: I think there's one area there that people are really gonna push back on. And I think honestly, it's the professional photos that you mentioned. Uh, you know, I've got an iPhone.

I went and saw some blue footed boobies. Those are birds. For those of you who don't know, got some amazing pictures. Even though I have zero experience, and so I feel like I got great pictures of my kids. If I put it in portrait mode, I feel like there are people who are gonna say, oh no, my iPhone will take good photos.

I can, I can take the photos. So convince me about these images, Chris. 

Chris McAllister: Well, I've never seen a professional photographer who, who, who, who specializes in, in, in foot photographing homes. I've, I've never seen anybody just personally who doesn't do that for a living come close to the quality of the pictures that are real professional takes.

Now, having said that, you know, every, every house is different. Every situation is different. And I have to say, if you do, you know, make sure that the home is, is staged appropriately. You've gotten rid of all the stuff, all the clutter, you know, it's, it's, it's clean, you know, fresh paint, whatever it is you needed to do to prep the house.

You know, I'm not saying that you can't get, you know, some solid pictures with your iPhone. I'm just saying if your goal is to get the best price possible and to leave nothing to chance Spring for the two or 300 bucks that it might cost to get professional. Pictures, you know, great images. They don't just show a home, right?

They don't just show a room. They don't just show the size of a closet. They sell a lifestyle and done right by a professional who specializes in, in marketing homes for sale. I mean, I'm telling you, it can add thousands of dollars, if not to the appraised value of the house, the perceived value of the house and the mind of the buyer.

And that's really your goal. You want that buyer to, to make the the best possible offer that they can afford. So I guess my question is, why take any chances on that? 

Laci LeBlanc: Oh, I mean obviously I agree. I was just baiting you for that one. So no imagery, I mean, is is huge. It always has been from the time that we were starting to post images online, uh, you know, on Facebook when we first had our Facebook accounts using our a OL dial up, um, and we had these grainy little photos.

I try to show my kids these things and they're honestly not even interested because the photos aren't good. Exactly. They're just not the quality they expect. And I think that's how people feel when they go and they look at a home online. And, 'cause here's the thing, other people are always going to. Take that extra step.

They're always going to hire somebody to do these professional photos, and you can't just compare your home to how it is in real life. You have to compare it to all the homes out there on the market, and as long as other people are doing it, um, then that's another kind of level of competition that, that you have.

Um, 

Chris McAllister: so that's, that's absolutely right. You know, chances are there's more than one home in your neighborhood for sale. And if you're the only one that has, uh, iPhone photos in your marketing and everybody else has got professional photos, I can tell you you're gonna be at a disadvantage to the neighbors.

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. I mean, I, I in, when you, as you were saying that, I was like, if I saw one of those, I would think, oh, those people aren't putting the same amount of work in. And the other people I like, maybe I can undercut them on their, their listing price or, or 

Chris McAllister: head, what are they hiding? Right. Or, you know. I mean, think about it.

Everybody watches TV now on 4K TVs, you know it, yes, you can get, uh, you know, high resolution photos on your, on your phone. But anyway, I, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but professional quality photos by somebody that specializes in taking pictures of homes matter. I tell you what we love to do is, um, we've got a, a couple of vendors we use and they take, the brand name is called Matterhorn.

And these folks come in with these digital video cameras after the home is stage, and they set the camera up in the middle of each room and the camera does a whole 360 up and down, and you get a 3D rendering of the room. And once it's done, all of the rooms, you, you, it puts together a floor plan. And I don't know about you, but I, I don't really care to sit and watch a video.

Walkthrough of a home, right? I, if I want to get to the great room or I want to get to the laundry room, I want to jump to that room. I don't wanna watch, you know, a five minute linear video of an agent walking through the house. That's why I love these Matterhorn, um, videos because you see the floor plan and if you wanna see that room, you click on that room and then you can see, you know, 360 degrees around.

It's just such a step up. And I, I, I do think it makes a lot of difference, especially in a, in today's market, and as you know, homes are taking, you know, a little bit more time to sell Any edge that you can get makes all the difference in the world. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, I do think that the, the, especially the floor plan that it creates really gives you the context and that really fits kind of in the overall marketing scheme.

We want the whole story. Uh, you don't just want bits and pieces and I think that that floor plan that it creates really gives you the whole context of the home. And that's where you can start saying. Oh, well this would be, you know, my kids' room and this would be our room and, you know, our kitchen table would fit right here.

And I think that that's part of that story that we're trying to tell. Even though it's not directly related, I think it does, does fit there, especially when you're focusing on digital marketing. Digital marketing over time. This is one of the things that has changed. Um, you know, there are a lot of things about real estate that maybe hasn't changed, but this is one that has, digital marketing is huge when you're listing a home.

So talk to me about, um, you know, how to use digital marketing and, and maybe how a, a professional real estate agent can give you an edge there. 

Chris McAllister: A professional real estate agent's gonna put it in the MLS and the MLS is gonna drive that information to all the major platforms on the internet. Correct. But a great agent is going to go the extra step.

You know, a, a great agent tends to have a giant Facebook following. You know, we've got agents with thousands of followers on their business Facebook pages, and, you know, they, when they list a house and they put it on Facebook, it's not just about, you know, repeating that listing on Facebook. It's also about making sure that the people that they know they're friends with on Facebook who might be interested in that property are going to see it.

So, you know, there is a strategy to how you use Facebook, Instagram, um, you know, even Tac Tac TikTok as as a marketing platform. That's in service to, you know, getting that home in front of a a, of a buyer that's gonna be interested. So it is a little bit more involved than simply, you know, putting it up on your personal Facebook page.

There's, there's some strategy there that may not, uh, necessarily be apparent. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. As a marketer, I, I, one of my favorite saying is, posting is not a strategy when it comes to marketing, and that's one of the mistakes that people commonly, commonly make. What are some of the other mistakes that you see, um, in marketing when you're trying to, to list a house?

Chris McAllister: Well, definitely poor photos are missing photos. Um, missing details, right? You're, you're not telling the whole story and, and, you know, inconsistent messaging across platforms. You know, if your listing looks like you just tossed it together and, and, and, and, uh, you know, put it online if it, if it looks careless online buyers assume that your home has been cared for in the same way.

Maybe not consciously, but two things are gonna happen, right? If they see missing photos or poor photos, missing details, inconsistent messaging. An investor is going to definitely see that, wow, maybe that's an opportunity to make a low ball offer. Maybe that seller is as distressed as their listing looks like, is distressed.

So again, if, if, if your listing looks distressed or it looks like you just tossed it together, there's, you can bank on the fact that, uh, prospective buyers are gonna, are gonna see it that way. And they'll either not bother to look at it, not bother to make an offer, or worse, they'll, they'll make an offer accordingly.

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. I, I do think that there are sellers out there who are capable and competent and could sell their home themselves, but for most people, I feel like, you know, hiring a real estate professional to help you through this process is an investment. And what I am hearing as you're talking is that, you know, a few mistakes could get you thousands less.

So really investing in a professional is gonna get you a higher price and you end up not really spending the money at all. Yeah. It kind of evens out in the end, or, I mean, hopefully, and in most cases, I think, um, gets you more, more for your money. So, um, I think that's the difference between hiring a, a consummate real estate professional and maybe just the, the guy you knew.

Um, from, you know, a high school or, or doing it yourself. Yeah. So, um, and I know we sp, I mean, obviously we spend a lot of time here talking about how best to target and market. If you had to kind of sum up how roost addresses marketing, how we feel about it, what would you, what would you say? 

Chris McAllister: I would just say that every word, every photo, every showing should reinforce one clear story.

Right? And, and, and, and that story is why this home, why it's right for you and why, right now? I think that's, that's really the main theme of the, of, of, of this whole discussion. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, I mean, I think when you talk to somebody like Priscilla about, you know, listing a home, that's the, the feeling that you get from her.

She knows who this home would be right for. And it's not one single type of person, but it's, it's either, you know, a, a family with young kids or, um, you know, this type of person or that, and she thinks about that subconsciously because she's been doing this for so long and she's so good at it, right? And so she has that story in her mind before you probably even start staging.

Um, and it's that presentation and knowing that, that I think helps make buyers fall in love with homes. Um, and you always say that buyers don't buy houses. They buy how a home makes them feel. Can you tell me more about that? 

Chris McAllister: It's, it's, um, it's interesting, right, because we opened up this, this, this, uh, podcast today by talking about how we want sellers to divorce themselves from their feelings, right?

We want sellers to be incredibly analytical, incredibly objective, but as a, a home seller and as a professional marketer, you want to tweak every single emotion a potential buyer may have, right? You know, you know, buyers imagining, you know, it is emotional for buyers, right? The buyers imagine their life unfolding in a home in the space, right?

If they come in and they see a clean, bright, uncluttered home, it helps them, helps them picture themselves living there. If they, you know, walk into a house or see a picture online, and it's messy, it's cluttered, it's haphazard. You know, if there was an emotional, uh, uh. Spell, so to speak, when they walked up to the house.

As soon as they walk in, you're gonna break that spell. So, you know, as a seller, I don't want you to be emotional, but I do want you to do everything you can to play on the emotions in a, in a positive way, but to play on the emotions of the seller because it's such an exciting time for them and you want them to be excited about your house.

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. When, when I moved into this house, it was my grandfather's house, so there wasn't that uh, process, right? Everything was still here. It was up to us to do all of the things that you need to do, and we really started getting excited, you know, and there was obviously a myriad feelings there because it was my grandfather's home.

But we really started getting excited about our future in this home after we had removed everything. After we had repainted the walls, white just, and we just did it to have a blank slate because we didn't know, because it was impossible to see the step 

Chris McAllister: making it your own. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, it was impossible to see like what colors we wanted or what, because everything from from Papa was still here, and it wasn't our, it wasn't gonna function well for our family.

So, um, I feel that one kind of in my soul, but, um, if you had to pick three things that a seller has to do, so these must do items before they list their home, what would you, what would you say those top three things are? 

Chris McAllister: Well, that's easy. You gotta tidy up. You gotta clean up and you gotta fix up, right? So when we say tidy up, we mean declutter.

I mean, we've had sellers over the years that have rented storage units, right? To get stuff outta the house, put it in the storage unit just to make more space, right? You know, all the stuff that you know you live with. You look at on bookshelves, on on tabletops, closets, et cetera, every day. Get rid of it.

You know, your goal when we say tidy up, is to declutter everything when we talk about cleanup spotless cells. Now, I'm not here to say anybody's living in a dirty house, but I want everybody who's gonna put their home on the market. As soon as you get it decluttered. I really want you to consider bringing in a professional cleaner that's gonna come in and make sure that house is absolutely spotless.

And the third piece, fix up. You gotta go, you gotta go after those small things. You know, I, I, you know, if it's, if, if, if the rug is ripped or the carpet is ripped, you should probably replace that carpet. If there's a, you know, a nail hole, you know, fill that, you know, touch up the paint if the, you know, threshold is not quite securely attached when you come through the front, what, whatever it is.

And, and again, this, if you're doing this yourself, right, if you're your own listing agent, sometimes it's hard to see those things. So we have a couple of tours tools on our website that you can download that'll help prompt you to look for certain things. But please, please, please, you know, selling your home as is, is overrated.

You wanna repair the small things that buyers will notice that we as owners sometimes overlook. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, it makes a huge difference, right? In the, in the final purchase price of a home, these seemingly small things. 

Chris McAllister: It does, and I, and I gotta tell you, it's the difference between night and day. You know, the term staging bothers me a little bit.

You know, I think a staged home means that it's, it's, it's set up for living, but it's, it's clean, it's not cluttered and it's not personal. Right. A staged home might be a little bit more generic. So you want people to be able to look at your house and not see your life. You want people to look at a house as a, as a clean slate, sort of like you said, at, at, at your grandfather's house, so that they can, they can start to see it the way they will.

Fix it up the way they will live in it. But, uh, you know, staging doesn't have to be an elaborate process of bringing in professionals and moving out your furniture and moving temporary fur furniture in. But a, you know, a fresh looking home that's clean, decluttered, no obvious, uh, you know, deferred maintenance.

I, I can tell you every single time in the 25 years I've been doing this, that home will sell faster and potentially for thousands of dollars more than it would otherwise. You know, that kind of fix up, tidy up, you know, clean up its signals care, it signals confidence, and it makes people feel comfortable that this is a, this is a home they should, should consider to buy and live in.

Laci LeBlanc: So you wouldn't be happy if, if a seller said, oh, the buyer can fix that. Right. You know, that's maybe not our ideal situation. You know, there, there 

Chris McAllister: have been markets, you know, like during COVID, you, you know, where people were just buying everything sight unseen. But that is not where we are today. You know, if something's broken now the buyer's gonna assume that there's more hiding behind it.

So fix it. That little bit of investment, it, it, it's gonna pay back big time. You're gonna get it back in the, in, in the price you ultimately sell the house for. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. I mean, if you've ever owned a home before, you know that even if everything looks perfect, there's always something that needs to be fixed.

There's always something hiding, just waiting to break. So, um, yeah, if you can see things that are broken, I'm sure that that's a, a huge indicator that there's, there's more where that came from. Um, so we talk about kind of the model home standard for sellers at Roost. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Chris McAllister: Well, if you wouldn't see it in the model home, you shouldn't see it in yours. So maybe, maybe something that every home seller listening to this should think about is drive out next Sunday to, uh, the local new subdivision that's going up and take a walk through the model home. You know, you may not, that's your goal for presentation.

You may not, you may not get 100% there, but it will inspire you to take a second look at how your home is going to present once you get it on the market. 

Laci LeBlanc: So in other words, you would just reinforce the fact that I can never move or sell this house, ever. Right. Because I'm not, there's, I'm just looking around at all my things and there's just no way.

None of this would be in a model home. I understand. Um, all right. Let's change gears just a little bit and, and move on to pricing. Um, pricing is, I think, not even arguably, but it's probably one of the toughest parts of selling your home. And I think it's really tied to that emotion that we talked about earlier.

How do you price. A home? How do you take that emotion out of it? 

Chris McAllister: Well, you gotta go back to what we talked about at the beginning. You know, you've gotta be the CEO of of, of this, of this home sale. You've, you've gotta run this business. And if you're gonna run a business, you have to focus on evidence. You have to focus on, on, on what's real, right?

Whatever you paid for the house, whatever you put into the house, whatever you did to the house, I gotta tell you, it, it just doesn't matter, right? You know, only what buyers are paying right now is what matters. So, you know, you've got to have, um, what we call it, a pinpoint price analysis. But what we do is we primarily look at recent sales.

In the neighborhood, right? So we go back six to 12 months and I like to look at properties that have actually sold that are as, as, as similar as possible to, to the, to the home. We're going to list. And then we look at what's the current demand like, we look at how many other houses are currently for sale, you know, how many days did it take to sell those houses, or how many days have, you know, houses currently on the market, uh, how many days of, of houses that are for sale right now, been on the market.

All of those things kind of come together in the form of, of what we call a pinpoint price analysis, but what your agent may call a, a comparative market analysis. We've also got, uh, as realtors, uh, most of us have a really cool tool called. RPR. Now you're gonna ask me what RPR stands for, but it's, it's a, um, we can put a link in the show notes, but it's, it, it's a tool.

Realtors have that take all of that, um, data into account and formats it in such a way that it's, it's easy to understand and, and, uh, make sense of. And the cool thing about those is, you know, we're talking about it in terms of what a seller needs to get a house priced correctly, but a good pinpoint price analysis is also going to be helpful to show a buyer why this house is priced the way the, the, the way it's priced.

Right. If that makes sense. So a good pinpoint price analysis works both ways because it's, it's data-driven, right? It's comps, it's trends, it's buyer activity. Um. Where the whole goal is, is that you want that sweet spot where you're gonna get the maximum you should for the house, but you don't have a price so high that people are just gonna shake their heads and walk away.

Right? And you know, you're looking for that place where you get activity. You're looking for that price where showings turn into offers. And if we do our job right, you know, as sellers pricing that house, there's a darn good chance you're gonna end up with multiple offers. 

Laci LeBlanc: So that's realtors property resource, right?

The database that you're talking about? Yes. That's what it's called. Yeah. Property resource. Yeah. You got that Google machine 

Chris McAllister: going. I do. 

Laci LeBlanc: I was googling while you were talking. So it's teamwork that makes the dream work here, Chris? Um, no, I think what came to my mind when you were talking about what, what you paid or need doesn't matter only what the buyers are paying right now.

I talked to my dad yesterday. He's got a car on his, in addition to being in real estate, my family's in the used car business. Um, he's got a car on his lot that he's had for, it's, you know, days on market are high. He bought it for this much. He started, he, he priced it maybe a little high for the market and this is rare for them, so it really frustrates them.

But he priced a little hard for the market. He's had to drop it down. Um, and he is getting to the point where, you know, he just needs to kind of get it off the lot. Um, and so, you know, what he paid doesn't matter anymore. He just needs to, he has to sell it for what the market allows. Um, and so I think that that's very similar.

Um, whether you're talking about a, you know, 70, absolutely $500 Honda Fit, or your $750,000 house. Um, so I think that the, one of the things that I think about is when you first place it on the market, um, when you first list your home, um, those first couple of weeks are really, really critical. Um, can you talk to me about why that is and why, why we at roost work so hard to do this kind of research on the front end so that we can get it out there at the exact right price right away versus having to kind of play with it?

Chris McAllister: What happens is when you're, if you're working with a listing agent and they put their home in the local mobile listing service, that automatically pushes that information out to all of the, uh, all of the listing platforms, whether it's realtor.com, Zillow, or whatever. But let, let's use Zillow as an example because it's the, it's the one that, you know, people talk about the most.

The Zillow uses algorithms, and I guess those algorithms are not unlike, you know, if you're on Facebook and Facebook learns what you like to see and it gives you more of what you wanna see, right? Well, the algorithms work similarly on, on Zillow. If you're on Zillow all the time looking for your next house, it knows what you're looking for, right?

It knows your search history, whether you want them to or not. And if a house comes on the market that fits that search history, you can bet that the algorithms are gonna push that house, your house, right in front of the buyer that is most likely to be interested in it. That only happens for the first couple of weeks.

You only get one chance, right? So when your listing is fresh, the algorithms on all these internet sites and, and with AI now involved, that all works for you. But if you miss that window. By overpricing, the only place to go is down and you start chasing the market down because at that point, if you miss it over the first two weeks, you're gonna have to start taking price reductions.

And we, it, it sounds cliche and every realtor, you know, has said this more than once in their career, you know, but you're know, but your, your, your best chance of, of getting the maximum possible value for the house is, is that first couple of weeks your, your first offers tend to be your very best offers.

And when you start having to take price reductions. People who are serious about buying a home, they know what, what, when price reductions are taken, because they're looking at Zillow and every place else, every single day. And if, and if people start to see a downward trend, you know, it, it, it looks like, uh, they're gonna attack, right?

There's, there's just gonna be a point where whatever your, your next price is, they're gonna come in under it. So, you know, it, it, it, it, it's hard, but when you're thinking like a CEO, maybe it's not so hard. You've gotta get the best price that you can possibly come up with, and you, and, and your agent or your, or you need to go with that market, the living daylights out of it.

Because again, those first two weeks favor the bold, so to speak. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. So again, that's why we are big fans of putting the work in at the front and not, we're not big test the market fans. Is that fair to say? 

Chris McAllister: No, I can't afford to test the market. I couldn't afford to test the market with my house, and I can't afford to test it with your house.

It's 

Laci LeBlanc: expensive testing. The market is expensive, and te testing 

Chris McAllister: the market can cost you thousands and thousands of dollars, right? I mean, every day, you know, your house sits unsold, your listing loses attention, and, and more importantly, it loses credibility. So, yeah, 

Laci LeBlanc: what's wrong with that house? Exactly. Why?

Why hasn't it sold yet? 

Chris McAllister: So you've gotta price that thing right from day one. 

Laci LeBlanc: Well, we've talked a lot about Zillow, um, and I, I love Zillow, don't get me wrong, but I wanna ask you a very, um, it's yes or no, so there's no in between here. But Zillow's Testimate, is it friend or is it foe? Is it a yes from you or is it a No?

Oh, it's 

Chris McAllister: an absolute friend, right? I mean, I think it gives people a place to start. But let, let, let's be clear here. The as estimate is just another data point. Right. This estimate doesn't know the things that you've done to the home in the last five years, or haven't done in the last five years. Right. A estimate can cut both ways.

You know, a estimate could assume that all of the, uh, regular maintenance has been performed on the house over the past few years, that the roof has been replaced, that the furnace has been serviced, and all those things at, at which, which means its estimate could be much higher than what reality is, right?

It, it, it, it, it's just as likely that it cuts that way as it as it cuts the other way. So it's a data point. It's helpful for context, but it's dangerous as it absolute, and it's certainly not a strategy. Right. You know, Zillow can't see your upgrades. It can't see the condition. You know, there's, there's a, there's a place for algorithms, there's a place for ai, but there's also a place for local data and how your home stacks up to the other homes in the neighborhood.

Laci LeBlanc: You found a maybe answer in there, even though I said yes or no, but I think that that's true. I think that, you know, it's a good starting point. Um, which, speaking of, of starting points, I think it's time we could talk about negotiation, um, which is where, as someone who, um, you know, as anxious, I'd say to say the least.

Uh, negotiating is where I really see the value of, um, you know, knowing your stuff, whether you're using a listing agent or you're doing it yourself. Um, the ability to negotiate is gonna be, that's, I mean, that's where you determine what you actually get for your home. Right. Um, so you say a lot of times that the offer isn't the finish line, like once they make an offer, you're far from, it's far from over.

It's just the beginning. What do you, what do you mean by that? 

Chris McAllister: But it is the beginning. You know, we, we've talked about getting a home ready to market. We've talked about marketing, but you know, when that first offer comes in, or better yet, let's be, let's be, uh, positive about this, when that first batch of offers come in, right.

That, that's when details matter, right? So, you know, of course the top line price is, is a data point, but so is the type of financing the buyer is going to have, the contingencies they're asking for, you know, when can they close and does that closing lineup with what your goals and and objective objectives are, you know, uh, uh, professional knows how to.

Analyze multiple offers, and more importantly, they know how to protect you through each step of the negotiation process. So this is, this is where there, there's, there's three places, right? When selling your home, you've got the, the pre-work, the marketing work, the behind the scenes work. You've got the launch, and then you've got, if you've done your job right, you've got offers coming in.

And then you've got the negotiation phase, which is where realtors really do earn their, uh, earn their fees. And, and then we're gonna get to this in a few minutes, but then you get to the point where, okay, we've got an offer, we've negotiated an offer, now we gotta get it to the closing table. So yes, up to now it's been fun and games.

This is where the rubber hits the road. 

Laci LeBlanc: It's not just about price, you know, looking at multiple offers on a home, or even if you just have the one, uh, you have to take into consideration so many other factors. Um, what are those factors that you have to look at? 

Chris McAllister: Well, you gotta analyze the net, right? What, what actually goes in your pocket after everything is done, after all the costs, after paying your realtor, after conveyance fees, after tax preparations, concessions that the buyer asks for the cost of contingencies.

Let's say you're selling your house, uh, you know, and, and you haven't quite picked out a house to move in yet. So, you know, you've gotta factor all of those things in. Not that that really has the, the buyer doesn't care about, but they're things that are gonna run through your mind as you're evaluating which offer is best, right?

If, if you have one offer that says. They're, they're, they don't have to move in for 30 or 45 days, and you have another offer that says, I gotta move in the day of closing. Maybe that works for you, maybe it doesn't. But the point is, it's not just about the top line price. The other thing is, a great agent is really gonna do everything they can to evaluate that buyer's motivation and more importantly, the strength that they're financing.

And that's where, you know, we get into, you know, talking about the relationships that, uh, your listing agent has with other agents in the, in the local realtor community. You know, do they, do they have the wherewithal? Do they have the connections? Do the, are they, are they able to garner information from their fellow realtors about your, uh, uh, about the strength of your buyer?

Because remember, at the end of the day, it's one thing to even, do you get a contract signed? It's a completely different animal to get it to closing. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. So why, why? Do so many deals fall apart after the contract is signed? I mean, would you say a lot of deals fall apart, I guess, after the contract is signed and if, if so, like why?

What are some of the reasons that that can happen? Because, as you know, not a real estate agent, I feel like I would be breathing my sigh of relief once the contract was signed. 

Chris McAllister: There's so many things that can happen. You know, just because you have a prequalification from a lender doesn't mean that you've got a final preapproval from a lender.

You know, there's, there's the, uh, appraisal process, there's the inspection process. There's a lot of things that can go wrong. But having said that, you, you, as the CEO of your home sale, you've, you've got to, to, to take care of the things and look for the things that you can have some control over. So before you accept any offer, you know, you wanna make sure that, that, that that buyer has a, a very strong pre-approval letter.

That the, the terms are, are clean, that the deadlines are reasonable. And, you know, I think this is a small thing that people overlook, but you know, your listing agent will tell you, there are some agents that when they make an offer on a property, you know, they've, they've got a complete offer package that is just.

Beautiful. Right? It's well organized, it's legible, you know, all the, all the signatures are there, the initials. Everything that's supposed to be in a contract is there, and you've got other agents where, you know, they're just a little sloppy, right? Or maybe they're less organized and so forth. And I, I'm, I'm here to tell you if I had two contracts and one of them was, you know, good pre-approval, clean, neat, and tidy, and this sounds crazy, but a good looking offer package, I gotta tell you, you know, all things being equal, there's probably a higher probability that that agent who took the time to put a a, a great offer package together is the one that's actually gonna get to the closing table.

Laci LeBlanc: Even if it's like a lower, a lower offer. 

Chris McAllister: Absolutely. You know, there, there's a lot of reasons why somebody may take a lower offer. You know, a lower cash offer with no financing risk is gonna be worth way more than a, a shaky, you know, high dollar offer with, uh, um, you know, FHA financing, and I don't mean to disparage FHA financing, but generally FHA financing means that the, that the buyer is putting no more than three to 5% down on their house, whereas cash is cash, right?

And then you get into distinctions between people who are putting little to no money down and, and, uh, people who are getting conventional financing with, with 20 per 20% down. But there is a, a huge difference in probability of something getting closed, you know, when you have a cash offer versus a financed offer.

Now, you know, am I saying that you're gonna take 20% off the top? Of course you're not going to, but you know, if it means taking an offer and getting closed. 30, 60, 90 days from when, you know, realistically, depending on the time of year, you might get a, a quote, a better offer. You've gotta think like a CEO, and you've gotta take the offer that makes the best sense for your situation.

It's not about the highest number, it's about what's gonna put the most money in your pocket and actually get to the closing table. I. 

Laci LeBlanc: I think that speaks a lot to the relationship you have with whoever's listing your, your property. I think that knowing your motivation and knowing what's important to you and understanding your story is so important.

Um, so obviously if you're listing your home yourself, you understand that it can be difficult to detach from, from that. But I think that when you work with a professional, that that's one of the things that they have in the back of their mind at all time, is how does this impact my client's goals? You know, is this aligned with what we've discussed, um, and how they're feeling about, you know, moving forward with their life.

So I think that's one of those, um, features of the quiet professionalism that we talk about at roost. Can you talk to me more about kind of quiet professionalism and what it looks like, like from the contract to closing stage once you've, you've got that signed contract, you know, how does, how does it, how does working with a professional look and what should it feel like?

Chris McAllister: Well, you know, you've gone through the, the marketing process. You've gone through the offer process, maybe only the first offer process you've negotiated, you know, a contract, it's in writing, right? Because that's the first thing. There's a little thing in real estate called the statute of frauds, and it says that only those agreements that are actually written down and signed by both parties are enforceable.

So, you know, you've gotta get all the way through to that point, but then another clock starts ticking and, and, and it's that period, like you said, from contract to, to closing. And this is where, you know, deals can fall apart. It's, it, you know, it's when you've got the inspections happening, you've got appraisals, you've got, you know, lenders who hit delays or run into snags with their buyers.

And without proactive management, little tiny things can become. Crises. And the other piece is, and, and this is important as your own CEO or when you're working with a listing agent, a great listing agent has seen it all right, so to speak. They've already gotten through situations where, you know, inspections have come back less than perfect, or buyers maybe, you know, are asking for things that, for the seller to fix things that maybe don't make a whole lot of sense, or they've been through appraisals that have come in short.

Or, you know, lender delays. Not everything to a true professional is an absolute crisis. Whereas if you happen to be working with a realtor who's maybe a little new, um, or hasn't had a whole lot of experience, maybe they're doing a part-time, they may not have lived through all of these different things that seasons professionals, uh, have already lived through, if that makes sense.

And, and I think that, that to me is sort of like the. The, the best example of quiet professionalism, it's, it's when on the surface, everything looks like it's, it's a crisis or it's potentially the end of the world when in reality a true professional is going to navigate that process and they're not just going to navigate their side of the transaction.

They're gonna do whatever they can to get that deal closed, even if it means doing things for the, uh, the buyer or the buyer's agent that. Maybe normally what they wouldn't have to do. But again, it comes down to what do I need to do as a listing agent to get this to the closing table? Does, does that make sense?

I feel like I'm rambling, but 

Laci LeBlanc: No, I just, it makes it me realize how much information there is to manage, how many, you know, lines of communication have to be open at the same time. It makes me wonder how on earth, you know, you can stay organized with all these things on your plate. 

Chris McAllister: Well, I, I tell you, it, this whole thing about quiet professionalism, you know, it's steady communication.

It's solving problems before they escalate. It's keeping everybody calm. And, you know, I always talk about real estate as being a practice. And it's a practice no different than a lawyer practices. It's no different than a doctor practices. And if you're working with a professional, the more they practice, the better they get.

The more they've seen the, the, the better experience ultimately. That, that you're going to have, and this whole thing with quiet professionalism, it also extends to organization. Right? So, you know, a great agent is going to track every contingency, every piece of paper. They're not gonna wait for the lender to report.

They're gonna be reaching out to the lender to find out where they are in the process. They're gonna be proactively talking to the title company. They're not gonna wait till the last second to have the title company come back and say, I need this, this, and this. Right. You gotta keep open lines of comm communication with everybody involved in the process.

Because at this stage, it's not just about the other agent, or it's not just about the buyer, it is about the lender, it's about the title company. It's, it's, it's kind of like air traffic control, if that makes sense. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. It just, there are so many things that a real estate professional is doing that I think sellers don't even realize that they're doing.

Chris McAllister: It's true. I mean, but this is, this is where agents really earn their keep, right? This is how they make a living. They get things to the closing table. They don't just sell houses, they don't just get signed contracts. They get things to the closing table, and that involves a lot of coordination behind the scenes.

Right. You know, again, appraisals, negotiating, repairs, deadlines before they slip. You know, contracts are real things, right? There's dates in there, and if you don't, if you miss a date, you potentially could lose the entire deal. Right. This, this is, this is serious business. It's, it's, it's not for the amateurs out there.

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. I think that, you know, a lot of times we talk about trading hours for dollars and that's kind of how people look when they pay someone for a service is, oh, it's not gonna take 'em that much time, or it is gonna take 'em a lot of time. But really, I think in every. Situation, but especially when you're talking about real estate professionals, you're not paying them for their time, you're paying them for their experience, right?

You, if they have decades of experience doing this, then maybe they can do it a little more quickly or a little more naturally, but you're not paying for the time they spend, you're paying for the experience that they have and how much easier they're gonna make this process for you. And I think in a, in a lot of ways, you're paying them to be your confidant and maybe your psychiatrist through all this too.

Because I, you know, I so fond of 

Chris McAllister: that too. 

Laci LeBlanc: Staying calm is not my strong point. And I will say that my lender in this scenario, because that's where my anxieties really were, and my agent, thanks Nana, we're really good at help keeping, helping me keep calm when I felt really tense about how things were gonna work out.

And I think that's one of the things that a good real estate professional does well too. 

Chris McAllister: A great listing agent's gonna keep everybody focused on the goal. And the goal is, is successful closing? So, you know, at the end of the day, I think professionalism means being the calmest person in the room. Or, or maybe it's, it's uh, it's the agent that makes what we know is incredibly complicated, look easy.

Laci LeBlanc: I am just gonna, I'll keep striving for that, being the calmest back in the room thing. It's good to have goals, um, but I think one of the things that really helps with that is clear, consistent communication. You know, when I was going through this process. Not being in limbo, not not knowing what was going on, was the thing that helped keep me the most calm.

Um, and helped keep me feeling really good about the process. And like you said, keep kept me focused on the end goal. Um, so I am baffled when I hear somebody say, well, my real estate agent never communicates me with me, never calls me. Why? How can that still have with all the ways we have to communicate and stay in touch?

How does that happen these days? 

Chris McAllister: Well, I, I think there's a couple of things there that's going on. So, you know, a lot of agents work really, really hard, but they're focused on, on doing the job, and they neglect communication. And, you know, sellers, even rational, CEO type sellers deserve updates even when there's nothing new.

Because at the end of the day, silence breeds. Anxiety, you know, that's, that's just how it is. Now, on the other side of that, you know, my tip for the day is have a open discussion with your agent about how you want to be communicated with and when you want to be communicated. You know, in this age, I, I don't know who uses the phone anymore, but, you know, there are some discussions that where a phone call is the only way to, to convey information and, and, and convey it accurately the first time.

There are many conversations I see agents trying to have via text message that in no way, shape or form should be conducted on text messages. You know, sometimes, um, you know, email can be a little bit more impersonal. So, you know, you, you take those big three, right? Texting, telephone, and, and. And email, and I'm sure there's a million others in the social media age, but there's different conversations that are appropriate for different things.

You know, if the, the text might be, you know, the day of closing, I'm on my way. Be there in 10, that's a text, right. You know, if you're not gonna be there in 10, it's a, it's a phone call. You know, you just have to gotta know your audience. You've gotta, you've gotta have a conversation about what you expect, when you expect it, and how you wanna be communicated with.

And that is not too much to ask. 

Laci LeBlanc: No, I agree. If silence breeds anxiety, I think that good communication breeds trust, and that's always what, what we're looking for. Um, what's kind of like your minimum standard? What's your communication rhythm that you would suggest for, for agents or for sellers who want to make sure that they're on the same page?

Chris McAllister: Well, what I see is, I, you know, most of the great listing agents out there, they, they sort of carve out a day, whether it's Monday. Or Friday or both, that they, they spend time communicating and updating their, their sellers and, and, and buyers for that matter in the midst of a, a transaction. So, you know, you need weekly updates at a minimum.

The other thing that, um, uh, really tends to make sellers anxious is they, sellers want real time updates after showings. And 

Laci LeBlanc: even if it's bad, 

Chris McAllister: even if 

Laci LeBlanc: the, even if the showing didn't go well, 

Chris McAllister: they, they need that information even if the showing didn't go well. The problem is we as real estate professionals, the very best of us, we're lucky to get feedback from the other agent maybe 30% of the time.

But it, it doesn't mean we shouldn't ask, but you know, at a minimum, if we don't have any feedback, we need to communicate that to the, to the sellers as well. A lot of the showing services these days, they, um, will solicit the, the agent for feedback after the showing if the. Follows through on that gives good information.

That information is immediately, uh, communicated with the, uh, listing agent and or the seller. So that's, that's helpful. But I, I, I do want to tamp down the expectation that you're gonna get real time feedback after every single showing that you're that. But, but you're not. But that doesn't mean your agent is gonna have, isn't gonna have contact with, with a lot of agents in the market, including agents that have shown your property.

So, weekly updates, best case, you know, communication after every showing and, and, and yeah, the expectation needs to be something that you're, you're gonna hear from your agent and be able to count on it. 

Laci LeBlanc: So the feedback that you get after showing. So what do you, what do you do with that? Is there. I mean, can you adjust your strategy?

Can you, you know, can you make changes based on that or is that too kind of fickle to, to trust? 

Chris McAllister: No, and absolutely you have to, you know, it's the market that's gonna tell you whether you're priced right. The market's gonna tell you whether, you know, you've got a house that's sellable for the, for the price you want.

So, you know, as a seller, you want honest buyer reactions, good and bad. You know, we often say that pricing is a strategy. It's not a one-time event. And, you know, certain feedback from, from buyers, especially if it's more than one buyer says that the home is a bit overpriced, then you need to go back and, and, and take that feedback seriously and, and sit down with your agent and figure out, okay, do we need to sharpen our pencils here?

Are we, are we a little outta line? Sometimes you get feedback on, uh, you know, how the house shows, right? And, and, and if you get that, then you definitely wanna consider, you know, making some changes when it comes to fix up, clean up, whatever, you know, coat of paint. What have you. 

Laci LeBlanc: So what if there is, what if there's no news?

Um, I mentioned that my biggest anxiety was just kind of being in limbo and not knowing, not hearing anything. What if there's, how do you handle, you know, no news. 

Chris McAllister: Well, the best of the best, we'll just still check in. They'll say, here's what we know, here's what next, and, and here's what we're watching. You know, you, you just don't want, as a seller, you, you just don't wanna be left hanging.

Right. And, um, you know, I think, again, the best among us, they, they anticipate that kind of anxiety on the part of the seller. And, and they, they get out in front of it even if there's nothing new to report or nothing, you know. Good to report. How's that? 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. So if you're your own listing agent, right? If you're selling without an agent, what, how do you, you know, we have this system, real estate agents who do this for a living, obviously have this system in place.

What does your system look like if you're selling your home and you're your own listing agent? 

Chris McAllister: Um, I think once or twice a week or after every showing, you've gotta kind of review the feedback. You know, look back, see what's happened. But I think there's three key questions that you need to ask yourself as the CEO of your own listing is, what just happened, what's next?

And this one, I love what could go wrong? So you could, you know, make some contingency plans. 

Laci LeBlanc: Oh, my brain really loves that question. That's my brain's favorite question. It's what could go wrong? 

Chris McAllister: What could go wrong? Oh, let me tell you, I like 

Laci LeBlanc: to start with what could go right, just to set myself up for success.

But we'll always get to what could go wrong. Um, and then there are some tools, uh, like technology is so prevalent now, right? There are some tools that we use to make this whole process. We talked about just the, the bulk of the process and how overwhelming it sounds. There are some tools that can make it a little easier.

Talk to me about that. There are, 

Chris McAllister: but you also have to be careful. There's a lot of technology out there where it's just a technology provider that's making any money. You know, I have a real aversion to technology for technology's sake. We, at our company, we employ every piece of technology that, that we can find that helps us.

Forge a, a deeper, um, long lasting, productive relationship with our clients, if that makes sense. So having said that, you know, there's a lot of shiny objects out there, but like we talked about 3D Matterport tools. I think that's a fantastic technology. Digital, digital scheduling and showing services. I think that's fantastic.

You know, even, you know, 20 years ago when I started, there was a lot of phone calls back and forth between a showing agent, you know, buyer agent and the listing agent and the seller, and just trying to set times up where you could actually walk through a property. And then don't even get me started on the days before we had lock boxes.

But so, you know, digital scheduling's a big deal in dot loop. You know, there's a lot of different, uh, uh, several different, uh, signing, uh. Contract things out there. Um, we happen to use dot loop, but dot loop makes, helps keep all of the paperwork straight. It makes sure that all of the signatures are in place and it keeps everything in, in one place.

So the three big things that, that we absolutely employ and that I think every great listing agent needs to employ is a, is a great way to, you know, market and photograph for, for digital tours, Matterport, digital scheduling, like showing time and eSigning, like dot loop. Those are the things that help speed the process along and keep everybody organized.

Laci LeBlanc: Efficiency and trust are the things that I think come to mind when I think about those tools. If the tool helps, helps you be more efficient, um, or helps you build trust with either your seller clients or people who are thinking about buying the home. I feel like they're worthwhile. I do think that there's, there can be too much tech, like you mentioned.

Um. You know, we talked about tech for tech's sake, or you know, the newest, shiny object, but I also think there's a human element there that you have to keep, right? 

Chris McAllister: Yeah. There was that old phrase, high tech, high touch. You know, there's places where high tech makes sense, but you still want to high touch still matters, right?

You, it still comes down to the human belly to belly one-on-one. That that's, that's where deals are done. That's, that's how closings actually happen, right? So you, you just, tech cannot replace human judgment, right? I think tech can amplify the expertise of a, of a great listing agent, and, and I think it does.

Um, but it certainly can never replace it. There is no substitute for actual experience because it takes experience before you can cultivate anything close to quiet Professionalism. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, I mean, I would argue that if you're not professional, if you don't have the expertise and you're, you're doing things wrong, that tech can amplify that as well.

Yes, absolutely. Workers, if you're wrong then, and you use the tech to get your wrong thing out there to everyone, then you, it's a lot of work to, to pull it back and, and to make it right again. So I think that when you look at the cost of, you know, selling your home, and whether that's doing it yourself and investing in the tools and the photos, or investing in a professional to help you do this, talk to me about, you know, why we call our service or our commission that a roost agent gets a professional service fee.

Why do we refer to it as that, as opposed to just a commission? 

Chris McAllister: Well, you know, as realtors, we're not just selling exposure on the internet, right? We're not just, you know, again, we shouldn't just be putting a sign in the yard and waiting for somebody else to, to take the wheel from there. A great listing agent manages risk, and that professional fee covers strategy.

It covers compliance, it covers negotiation. It, it, it covers, you know, years of building quiet professionalism. And at the end of the day, you know that professional service fee really better be providing peace of mind, because ultimately I think that's what you're paying your agent for. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. Um, I think that if you're a good agent and you're working with a good broker, that you've also made some mistakes in these areas.

Compliance, strategy, negotiating, you know, communication in the past, you know, nobody's perfect. And I think that that's one thing that maybe agents have of value to someone who's trying to list their home, uh, is, is they've made those mistakes so you don't have to. What would you do you agree with that?

Chris McAllister: Well, I, yes, there, there's no question about it. There's no substitute for, for experience. Right. And, and learning from, from your mistakes, you know, working with a seasoned agent, it, it should prevent costly mistakes, you know, and, and you can make mistakes in overpricing. There's mistakes with missed deadlines, you know, legal missteps and, and those things can.

You know, God, in the worst case scenario, those could wipe out your equity. So, you know, there's just a, a, a lot of places where, you know, again, it sounds a little self-serving, but there is no substitute for for experience. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. That's, that's why I'm the one asking the questions today is because I don't mind self-serving.

I think that the value of an, a real estate agent as someone who's not one, um, is, is obvious. But I work with them day in and day out, so I can absolutely see, you know, sellers who wanna do this themselves. Um, and it is possible, but I, I'm guessing that you could probably tell me at least one time, probably several, that, you know, having experienced saved a deal that was, that felt like doomed, that that hit a last minute snag or something occurred and, and experience.

Um, and having dealt with that before probably helped you. Save it. 

Chris McAllister: Well, there's so many places like that, you know, that there's been issues where, you know, a lender or a buyer didn't get their financing and at the last minute they have to go to another lender or they have to switch the type of loan that they're getting.

Um, you know, depending on the market, we haven't seen this as much lately, but, you know, appraisal gaps were a big deal, especially, you know, during COVID when you had people buying houses sight unseen and, and paying, you know, thousands of dollars above the asking price. And then, you know, lo and behold, just because you're willing to pay that amount of money or say you're willing to pay it, it still has to appraise.

Or the lender's not going to, you know, make the loan. So, you know that that's a little bit less of an issue right now, but it's still. Out there. And it doesn't mean when things like that happen that it necessarily has to kill the deal. It just comes back to that place where experience and, and calm and, and just open communication can, can make all the difference in the, 

Laci LeBlanc: so what's the trade off would you say?

If we wanted to kind of wrap this up for sellers who wanna do this themselves and be their own listing agent, what, what responsibilities there are they assuming? And what, what's the trade off for the savings that they're going to, to get? 

Chris McAllister: Well, just bear in mind if you're gonna do it yourself, and yes, you're gonna save some money, no question about it, and a lot of money, quite, quite frankly, but you're taking on all the responsibility for marketing.

You're taking on all the responsibility for legal compliance. You're taking on all the responsibility for negotiation and all the responsibility to, to, to get from where you are to the closing table. And yes, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7%, whatever it is you're paying your, your, your realtor. That's big, big. Bucks. But at the end of the day, there is real value and potentially tens of thousand dollars in savings when you work with somebody who has been doing this, uh, you know, for their entire career.

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. And I think that the, the market you're in, right? You've mentioned that several times. This is not such a big deal in this market, but it, it has been in the past, or I think the market you're in should, should play a role in determining whether, you know, a, a seller wants to do this for themselves or whether they wanna partner with a professional.

Chris McAllister: Well, you know, I, I think that the best sellers who decide that they want to do it themselves. And this applies though, to not just people who want to do it themselves as a for sale by owner, but also when they're working with a listing agent. But the best sellers lead their sale. Again, the best sellers are the CEO of their own sale.

They stay calm, they, they stay realistic, they stay proactive. And, and they, and they're, they keep their emotions at bay and they, they try to keep logic and, and quite frankly, math, you know, front and center. But they keep that relationship and that process that they go through with their listing agent, they treat it as a partnership and they never let it get to the uh, uh, panic or hysteria stage.

How's that? 

Laci LeBlanc: And both ways. I totally agree. Yeah. That's, if I could do that, I would say, yeah, let's go for it. But I, those are not my strengths. So I think, know, know thyself is maybe a good, good piece of advice. Um, what's another kind of piece of advice or what's the one behavior that you feel like every seller should adopt as they're getting ready to list their home?

Whether they're doing, doing it themselves or working with a, an agent? 

Chris McAllister: Uh, communication is clear, is clearly the number one thing if you're doing it yourself. You need to have open communication with all the agents in the market. 'cause chances are, they're the ones that are gonna bring you a buyer. You know, you want to be always in a mindset that you're making decisions based on facts and not fear.

You know, you're always trying to build trust with not just the, with, with your potential buyer or buyers, you know, and the real estate community. Um, you know, your, your goal is to take what could be. A very confusing process with a lot of moving parts. You want to turn confusion into control, right? If that makes sense.

You, you know, you, you wanna try to look ahead, you gotta look around corners, you know, you, you, you wanna be proactive enough that you can, that you're not constantly reacting to the, to the, to the thing that just happened and, and, and you start to sort of lead your sale. And, and again, uh, you know, I I, I think as we wrap up here, I think that's the theme of the whole thing is you want to be the chief executive officer of your sale.

You want to be running that business. Don't let that business run you. 

Laci LeBlanc: I think that's great advice for just life in general, right? Marriage, parenting, politics, the whole nine. Communicate openly based, make your decisions based on facts, not fear, um, you know, build trust, keep communication alive. I think, I just think that that's, that's good rules to play by no matter what, but in, in this case, I just, there rules for life.

Yeah. We're, we're turning this into a broader conversation. So if, kind of to wrap it up, if you had one piece of advice for every homeowner who's thinking about selling their home, what might that be? 

Chris McAllister: I think even if you think you're gonna do it yourself, you probably wanna interview a couple of listing agents and, and just get a little bit of feedback and, and who knows, maybe they'll change their, change your mind, maybe they won't.

But you've gotta do your research. You've gotta know what's going on. Keep an open mind, you know, you've got a wonderful house, but it doesn't mean that every buyer is going to see it the same way. That you are. So, you know, keep, keep, uh, your emotions in check. Try to be as objective as you possibly can.

And, uh, as my uh, eighth grade, uh, geometry teacher used to tell me, have faith and follow the rules. 

Laci LeBlanc: I love it. I love it. I think people forget you can interview your real estate agents. You don't have to just take the one absolutely that's recommended to you by your next door neighbor or the one that's related to you or somebody that, that you have had a relationship with in the past.

You can interview them. I think that's a, that might be the key takeaway from all of this is, is find the one that, uh, that works well with you and, and communicates well how you communicate and understands your goals. Um, they're out there. Um, that's all I had for you, Chris. I feel like this is a lot of information for home sellers, but I think it's all good.

And I do think there are a few common threads in there that we pulled out that, that will help sellers really. Become what we call a home selling genius and really get the most out of their property, um, so that they can move on to their next roost. 

Chris McAllister: I think so too. Thanks for, uh, being here with me today, and thanks to everybody who's, uh, listening and tell your friends about the All Things Real Estate podcast.

Laci LeBlanc: See you next time. 

Chris McAllister: Bye.