What If You Don’t Have to Win the Pricing Conversation?

A seller tells you what they believe their home is worth.

You’ve done the research. You know the comparable sales. You understand what buyers are doing in the current local market. And the number they have in mind simply isn’t supported by what you’re seeing.

You could tell them that.

After all, you’re the expert. They hired you for your professional guidance, and part of your responsibility is being honest about the market.

But what happens if your need to be right makes them feel wrong?

The seller becomes defensive. You bring more data. They defend their number. You explain why the online estimate isn’t accurate. They explain why their home is different.

Before long, you’re both trying to win.

And if you win, what does that make the seller?

The loser.

That’s probably not the relationship either of you wanted to create.

What If the Seller Isn’t Being Unreasonable?

Most sellers don’t pull their number out of thin air.

They’ve done what we encourage consumers to do. They’ve researched. They’ve looked at one or more public real estate portals. They’ve seen an estimated value for their home, perhaps watched it change over time, and naturally assumed there was reliable information behind that number.

Why wouldn’t they?

They may not understand how an online valuation is calculated, what information is included, what it cannot account for, or how that estimate compares with what buyers are actually doing in their local market right now.

That doesn’t make them difficult.

It means they have information without all of the context.

And that creates an opportunity for you.

Not to correct them, which could leave them feeling foolish, dismissed or misunderstood.

To get curious.

Before You Educate, Get Curious

Imagine a seller tells you, “The online estimate says our house is worth $625,000.”

There are plenty of ways to respond.

You could explain why the algorithm is wrong. You could pull out your comparable sales. You could tell them that buyers determine market value.

All of that may be factually correct.

But do you know enough yet to know what the $625,000 means to them?

One of the things I value most about Exactly What to Say® is that we don’t have to begin by telling someone what we know. We can begin by becoming curious about what they know, believe and want.

Using some of the Magic Words from Exactly What to Say®, the conversation might begin with:

“I can understand why you may think that.”

Then get curious.

“What do you understand about how public portals determine the value of a house?”

“What is your experience in understanding pricing in our current local market?”

“How certain are you that the online portals are accurate?”

Notice what isn’t happening.

You aren’t telling them they’re wrong. You’re learning how they arrived at what they believe and giving them an opportunity to think about how certain they are before you begin educating them.

That changes your position in the conversation.

You’re no longer standing on opposite sides of a pricing argument.

You’re trying to understand the situation together.

The Number May Not Be the Real Issue

There’s another question I believe matters even more:

Why is that number important to them?

Perhaps they need a certain amount of equity from the sale to purchase their next home. Maybe there is debt they want to eliminate. They may have retirement plans, a move they’ve been waiting to make or a financial goal connected to the sale.

So stay curious.

“How important is it for you to get that price?”

“Is it important because you have a certain amount of profit you’d like to get from the sale?”

Now you’re getting closer to their because.

This is where the philosophy behind Exactly What to Say® becomes especially important. People make decisions for their reasons, not ours.

Once you understand what they actually want the sale of this house to make possible, your pricing recommendation is no longer about proving your number is better than theirs.

It becomes about helping them accomplish what they told you matters.

This Is Where Your Expertise Belongs

Being curious doesn’t mean avoiding the truth.

It doesn’t mean agreeing to a price you know the market is unlikely to support. And it certainly doesn’t mean withholding your professional opinion because you’re afraid the seller won’t like it.

Being honest is being kind.

But honesty is much easier to hear when someone believes you understand what matters to them.

Once you have that context, you can ask permission to explain what you’re seeing in the current market.

Now your expertise has somewhere to go.

You can bring in the real numbers. You can explain what comparable properties are actually selling for, what buyers are doing and why positioning a home above its likely market value could work against the very outcome the seller wants.

Then the Magic Words can help the seller consider what happens next.

“Could it be possible that by positioning your home properly in the market, you could get the amount of profit you’re hoping to get?”

Or:

“How would you feel if we priced your home above market value and it didn’t sell?”

And then bring them back to what they told you mattered.

“Just imagine we position your home properly for the current market, it sells, and you’re able to move forward with ______.”

Whatever belongs in that blank came from them, not you.

That matters.

What Happens When You Need to Be Right?

There seems to be a growing appetite for spicy responses, clever comebacks and blunt ways to handle difficult client conversations.

They may make entertaining social media posts.

I’m not convinced they make better client conversations.

Because the goal isn’t to demonstrate that you know more than the seller. Presumably, you do. That’s part of why they hired you.

Your expertise becomes valuable when you can use it to help someone see something they couldn’t see before.

That requires influence.

And influence becomes much harder once the other person sees you as the adversary.

If your goal becomes proving that you’re right, you’ve created a conversation someone has to lose.

What if there’s another way?

You Don’t Have to Win

What if the goal of the pricing conversation isn’t to get the seller to admit you’re right?

What if it’s to gain enough context to understand what matters, educate them about what they may not know, and help them see the situation from a different perspective?

Then they can make an informed decision for themselves.

They may still decide to price higher than you recommend. Your responsibility to provide honest professional guidance hasn’t changed.

But the conversation has.

You didn’t need to make them feel wrong in order to share what you know.

You didn’t need to win for them to reconsider their position.

And you didn’t have to choose between honesty and empathy.

You used both.

Because perhaps one of the most valuable things we can do as professionals isn’t proving that we have the right answer.

It’s knowing exactly what to say to help someone see their options differently, understand why they matter, and make the best decision for themselves.

So the next time a seller gives you a number you know the market doesn’t support, perhaps the first question isn’t:

“How am I going to convince them they’re wrong?”

Maybe it’s:

“What do I need to understand before I can help them see this differently?”

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Chris Ruszkiewicz is an Exactly What to Say® Certified Guide and the founder of CMR Coaching & Consulting, a founding partner of Keller Williams Realty Milwaukee, and an Executive Business Coach with 32 years of experience in sales, negotiation, and leadership.