Winning in Today's Market: Choosing the Right Listing Agent

Not all listing strategies are the same. Garrett and Shelby share the questions every seller should ask before hiring an agent, from pricing strategy and marketing to team support and the selling process.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, and we are back. This is the final segment of the show today. You've been listening to the Idaho Life Show with Garrett Phil and Shelby Matson. And Shelby, I want to spend this whole last segment on something, you know, really incredibly practical. So if you're a homeowner right now here in the Treasure Valley and you're thinking about selling in the next three, six, twelve months, and this doesn't even have to be a home here in Idaho. You could have a home in another state. These are things that you could apply. So this segment is a pen that you want to have ready for.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Absolutely. This is my favorite topic to talk about because most sellers they don't even know what questions to ask. They interview an agent, they hear a number, what they think they can list for, and that's the whole interview. That is absolutely not enough.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

So I think it's imperative then that we can help in this segment give sellers or homeowners, I should say, a list of questions. And again, I think a pen would be great for this. So let's get that pen ready. We'll go and walk through what a a real agent interview should be. So what's the first one, Jelby?

SPEAKER_01 1:03

What does your preparation process actually look like start to finish before my home hits the market?

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Before it hits the market.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Before. Okay. Okay. That's the first question. And what you want to listen for is specifics, not oh, we'll get it ready, right? Specifics, walkthrough, punch list, vendor coordination, timeline, staging consultation, and the entire marketing plan, which I think is imperative. It's imperative. If the agent gives you a one-sentence answer to that question, that is a huge red flag.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

So really what we're talking about is the expectations of what should we know before this even goes live? Which is, you know, it's something that most sellers and homeowners don't think about. They think, okay, when's the sign going up? Yeah. But there's a lot that front loads into making the listing build momentum from the very beginning out of the gate. So and and in your process, Shelby, when you or anyone in our office is listing a home, what does that actually look like for a seller?

SPEAKER_01 2:04

That's a great question. We do a pre-list walkthrough with the seller with our staging consultant, and we build a we build out a punch list specific to that property. Okay. Yeah. So from there, we have a list of vendors ready to go for anything that needs repair, paint, cleaning, you name it, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

We just want to get it visually stunning, right? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

So we help coordinate the vendors, we get any work done needed, and make sure the property is deep cleaned. That is imperative. Then the stager comes in and brings in the stage any staging items to make sure the home pops, whether it be furniture or placing family photos with artwork, replacing them, sorry, family photos with artwork.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yeah. So so just to make sure I understand, so it's the deep cleaning. We get repairs done, then it's deep cleaning. Yes. And then you've got the staging. Yes. And then what happens after the staging?

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Well, we actually schedule the photography around when the home is going to be at its very best, right? We have a launch date we work backward from, and every step is mapped out.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

So we have this launch date, right? So we pick a date. Yep. And then we work pretty much reverse engineer the entire thing. We don't say, okay, let's see how long it's going to take us. We set a date and we work backwards with whatever the seller wants as their schedule. Yes. Okay, that's that's great. So okay, so we've got that first question out of the way. So what's question number two that the sellers should be asking their agent when they interview them?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

So do you hire and pay for a professional stage here or do you expect me to do that? Right? Just ask it directly. It's okay to ask. Yeah, don't beat around the bush on that one. And the answer matters because if the agent tells you they recommend staging, but they expect you to find one and pay for one, that tells you something about how invested they actually are in your listing success.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

So let's talk about that for a second. So when you're an agent, Shelby, you're uh the home is never guaranteed to sell.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

No.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Right? So you're investing a lot of your own expenses. This is something that a seller is not expected to do when you list with their office, but it is a huge expense. Thousands of dollars. Thousands. Yeah. And and the list goes on and on from the paid websites to the staging to the photography. We haven't gotten through the rest yet, but it's it's a lot. So yeah, again, our answer to that is yes, we hire, we coordinate, and we pay for the staging consultation and the entire staging process. So that is built into a service. And I it's very important. And and there's nothing wrong with hiring an agent that expects you to do it. It's uh just a different way. It's a different approach for sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Yeah. We want to take as as less stress off of our clients as possible. And if one is selling a property, sometimes there's financial stressors involved. So if we can offset that and help them breathe a little bit while we get the home listed by paying for some of these things, it really does help in the long run.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

And would you say it's not just paying for the things as well? It's it's also who to contact, who the best service providers are in the Treasure Valley for staging photography vendors. That helps as well.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Absolutely. We vet them, like you mentioned earlier. So it's important, right? And so here's question number three for your agent. What does your photography package include? I don't think anybody asks me that when I first started out. Probably not. They should.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

They should, so ask.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Right? And here is where you want to push for details. Ask whether they shoot HGR. Ask whether they include drone footage. Ask whether they shoot Twilight. What Twilight, right? Right. Huge. Um, ask whether they include a video walkthrough. Ask whether they include floor plans.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Yeah. And uh you could get a multitude of different responses, right? So just for anyone listening, what if you're given kind of an unsure response or vague response?

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Yeah, if the agent says we use a professional photographer and stops there, you need to keep asking. Okay. Because there is a massive range in what professional photography actually includes. Some packages are eight to ten still photos. Oh my gosh, eight to ten. Not enough. Not enough. Some packages like ours are 40 to 50 edited images plus aerial plus video plus interactive floor plans.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

A lot. It's a lot. Again, this is what's getting people through the door because you said 97% of buyers start their search online.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Okay, so I think we're this would be the fourth question that uh homeowners uh listening should be asking an agent when they interview them.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Yep, here it is. How many websites is my listing going to be syndicated to and promoted on?

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Right? Notice I said promoted on, not just listed on. There's a difference there. Anyone can get on the major search sites just by being in the MLS. The real question is, is your listing going to be featured, right? Okay. Featured. It is it going to be paid promoted? Is it going to be pushed in front of buyers in their feeds, or is it just sitting passively on a page hoping and praying somebody finds out?

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Which someone will find out, right? But it more likely be found out a lot easier and quicker. And if it's on the top of the page versus on the bottom of page six, you're going to be seeing a lot a lot quicker. Yep. So okay. So we're, I think we're to question five now. Oh, this is a good one. So I think this one might be an important one.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yes. Are you selling my home by yourself, or do you have a team behind you?

SPEAKER_00 7:33

So you ask them again. So you want to ask, are you selling my home by yourself?

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Or there's a team. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Yep. And I want to be really clear about what this why this matters. Because there are excellent solo agents in the valley. I mean, there's a ton of them. There's a lot of things. They're amazing. There are. I have a lot of respect for them. But selling a home can be extremely difficult at time and time consuming as a one-person job in this market.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Especially this market that ran right out of the spring market.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Right. There are too many moving pieces, and the market is moving so quickly.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Yeah. I mean, moving pieces, photography, staging, marketing, even down to simple things like the listing description, social media campaigns, the showing coordination, the offer review, contract management, you got inspection negotiation, the appraisal coordination, the title work, on and on and on and on, right? Every one of those are moving parts.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

And when you have one person trying to do all of it, things slip. So when you ask the question and the agent says, Oh yeah, it's just me. I do everything. That's not necessarily a deal breaker, but you need to ask a follow-up question. How are you making sure my listing gets the attention it deserves while you're showing properties to your buyer's clients on a Saturday afternoon, right? Will you hold an open house every week until it sells?

SPEAKER_00 8:53

And that's hard, right? It's definitely not impossible.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Especially for the seller.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Correct. Yeah. It's not impossible, but it definitely adds a layer of yikes. You know, it can be a little bit scary. So, okay, so you've got the solo agent by themselves. Now, kind of explain to us what does our team structure look like?

SPEAKER_01 9:12

For sure. Every listing has a dedicated listing agent, but what really sets us apart is we're relying on, we're not relying on just one person to find the buyer. We have over 40 full-time agents, and every single one of them has their own database of buyers. So when your home hits the market, the first thing we do is run that listing across our entire network.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

So that's over 40 agents running the listing over their database, right? Yeah. It's great.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

And that's over 25,000 people in our database that your home is immediately exposed to. On top of that, our agents are actively cross-promoting your listing on their personal social media. So if I have a listing, it's not just me, it's all 40 agents that are promoting it. So it's not just one account posting your home. You now have dozens of agents putting in front of tens of thousands of additional people on their own platforms.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

I love it. So again, not just one person, so not just your sphere, your followers, but 40 different agents potentially.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Okay. So a couple of bonus questions, not required, but I'd like, you know, do you to add to the list is how do you arrive at the suggested listing price? And can you show me the comps? Because the agent who suggests a number, and I'm talking kind of we've all seen it, we're a number, it feels like a number is being pulled out of a hat and they kind of underhand soft tosses to a seller and they say, What do you think about this? Right. So because in basically in an agent, what I want to get to is the agent who suggests a number without walking through how they got to that number, in my opinion, is doing a little bit of a disservice.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah. And the agent who suggests a price way above what the comps actually support, what we call buying the listing, that's an agent who is going to be calling you in three weeks after asking for that price reduction, right? Because they didn't, they didn't price it to sell. They priced it to win your business.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

That's right. Well, we are out of time today, but I want to leave you with this. If you're thinking about selling this spring or this summer, the data's on your side. Last month was one of the strongest months we've seen in years. Inventory is tight, buyers are active.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

And the choice you make about who represents you is the biggest lever you have to control which side of the statistic you end up on.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

That's right. Shelby, thank you as always. Treasure Valley, thank you for being with us. And if you're thinking about buying, selling, relocating, or you just want to better understand what's happening in today's market, we'd love to be a resource there for you. You can find us anytime at idaholife.com to search for homes. That's idaholif e.com and explore different areas around the Treasure Valley and learn more about how we can help our clients navigate the buying and selling process.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

You can also follow us on Instagram at Idaho Life Real Estate to keep up with new listings, market updates, behind the scenes content, and everything happening with our team and community.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

That's great. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your Saturday, and we will see you next week here on the Idaho Life Show.