What should an initial REALTOR® listing appointment consist of?

It takes more than a Smile to sell a House in Charlottetown and Prince Edward Island.

When you are thinking about selling your house in Prince Edward Island, whether it is Brighton, Stratford, Cornwall, Charlottetown, West and East Royalty, Winsloe, Brackley Breach, Rustico, Cavendish or Summerside what should you expect on the first meeting?

Here is what you should NOT expect on your first appointment to list your house when meeting with the agent:

• A 15-minute meeting talking about nothing but the price.  A price that is pulled out of the air, that usually results in the house sitting on the market for many months or years.
• Sweet talk about how great your house is — we need to be a little more objective.
• The agent discussing how great he or she is, and how lucky you are that you called him or her.

Without substantial sales data that is relevant, you could be wasting a lot of time basking in false optimism.

It is not the job of the agent to fabricate a price.  It is a joint venture between the seller and the agent to “decide” on what the proper price should be – a) based on the timeline you wish to take to sell and b) your home and the facts (data) presented.

I will re-emphasize this part: based on the timeline you wish to take to sell your home and factual data.

The 30-day, 90-day, one-year, and three-year price are all different numbers.  It is also important to look at days on market (DOM) when looking at sales data.

Do you know why there are so many houses for sale in Charlottetown and PEI?  By part, it could be a lack of marketing, but the other part could be the price was not decided mutually, based on data, and accurate for the current market.

Why would you bother putting your house on the market for $250,000., when there are 20 other homes exactly the same for $210,000?  I know; HOPE!  HOPE was the marketing plan.

How can an agent come up with a price, with no data on hand, having never seen the house previously, and do it in 15 minutes?  I have no idea, however, this is done every day.

Here is what a proper listing appointment consists of:

• A time period of 2 hours should be allotted.
• All owners of the property should be present at the meeting, or at the very least; the decision maker (that does not require outside influence).
• A discussion of your goals:
  • Where are you moving to?
  • How fast (or slow) do you want to sell?
  • What did you “think” your house is worth?
  • Do you have financing in place for your next purchase?  If there is one.  
  • What is your current mortgage balance?
• A walk around the house and property discussing the benefits of the house and property.
• A discussion about the area, the lifestyle, and why they chose that neighbourhood.
• Things to do in the area.
• Some quick photos may be taken (not for marketing) but more for data comparison, and future staging purposes.
• Most importantly: A listing presentation that includes what the agent intends to do to market the property, and how they will create the photographs, video, postcards, write copy, and an Internet and a Social Media Marketing campaign (some examples of past work would be great!)  Be sure to check the amount of traffic to the websites mentioned, the number of views on a video and/or YouTube Channel.

This is what a proper Listing Presentation may look like:

Listing Presentation Example (This is an old version. My latest version is much more substantial and all digital.)

But what about pricing my property or house for sale?

Now that the agent has seen the house, and once you agree to hire that agent to sell the house, the next meeting or meetings will discuss price.  Do not choose an agent based on price for very obvious reasons.  The data that the house appraisers and the agents use is all the same, and the same numbers (selling price range) should be similar in most situations.  Also remember:  Check the days on market (DOM) of the comparable sales, as I discuss here in a recent blog post.  The selling price of a house that took 5 years to sell is not relevant for a house owner that wants to move in 90 days.