Handling the Pricing Objections That Stop Sellers
Common seller objections can slow a sale. Focusing on closed sales and current competition can help avoid stale listings.
NEW YORK — Despite the slowing market and ongoing economic uncertainty, your seller wants one thing: the highest possible sales price from their real estate. Today, more than ever, sellers may need more guidance on pricing.
The most common pricing objections from sellers tend to center on what nearby homes are listed for, what the seller originally paid, the cost of improvements, automated valuations and the idea of testing the market at a higher price or waiting for conditions to improve.
But buyers, not sellers, determine what a home is worth in the current market, and overpriced listings can lose momentum quickly during their first few weeks. Waiting for a better season, lower rates or calmer headlines may not improve the outcome either.
Helping sellers work through those barriers and position the home as the best value among competing listings can be critical to getting it sold. Agents should direct sellers to closed sales as a way to correctly price their home, because closed sales are the ones that matter in the long run.
The longer a house sits on the market, the less sellers will net when it is sold. Some home improvements and upgrades do not always translate into increased property values, and agents should explain how adding square footage or mirroring the standards of other properties in the area translate into greater value.
Additionally, improving the value of their property above what the market can sustain will not generate the value that sellers often expect. A balance is needed to achieve correct pricing.
Agents can educate sellers on how buyers determine what a home's value is and ensure that sellers are prepared for current market realities.
“When sellers understand how buyers actually determine what they think the house is worth to them, many of these objections disappear. Your job is not to debate price with the seller but to help them position their home where buyers see it as the best value among the properties currently on the market,” Bernice Ross told Inman.
Source: Inman (04/15/26) Ross, Bernice
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