Real estate agents: I need your advice.

[Mike Boss]

I recently got my real estate license and have been cold calling expired listings. I have a lead that owns a large house that she also uses as her business. The house is old and needs some work. 

She tried listing it for $3,000,000 and got an offer of $2.7M which she rejected. She doesn’t have a mortgage as it was bought many years ago. She is insistent on $3M. This is why the listing expired. 

If I could convince her to list it for $2.9M or $2.8M and work with me; how could I get her house sold and find a buyer willing to pay this amount? 

most houses in the area sell for $1M. And most unique houses like hers sold between $1.5M and $2.5M. 

[Russell Brazil]

If most houses sell for $1m, and the high end for certain properties is $2.5m....I don't think I'd waste my time with a seller who wants half a million dollars more than the highest properties in the area.

[Gustavo Munoz Castro]

This is a tough one. If a seller is being this stubborn they 1) have very little motivation to sell, and 2) don't like to listen to professional advice. Unless the market was super hot and values shooting up 1% monthly or more, this could be a huge waste of time. Try to drill down into motivation, why do they want to sell? can they make that happen with $2.8MM? Why not? No one is gonna pay her more than its worth, much less appraise for. Another strategy would be to list below market value and try to get buyers to bid it up, this is risky though since this is an outlier listing and the market may not be hot enough.

[Stephen DiJulius]

So 2 options here. 1) move on. She will be an constant pain in the rear client who will blame you for everything and then leave you a bad Google review. Or, 2) take the client, do your best with the listing knowing that it probably won’t sell for the price she wants, but leverage the listing to do open houses to build a book of buyer clients. 

[Bradley Buxton]

@Mike Boss

Why does she think he house will sell for 3M? Could she get that price with seller financing at 5%?  Since no one else will work with her continue to stay in contact with her. She is willing to sell and it sounds like she is emotionally attached to the house and it might take some time for her to come around. Keeping filling your funnel so this is not your only deal.