Educate the Seller

Your local MLS system has the information needed to create market comps and analyze price trends. Use that information to produce a summary of this information for your seller, customized for his sales goals. Many MLS systems can generate the reports for you based on criteria such as neighborhood, number of bedrooms, square footage, and so on.

You can take the insight gleaned from the MLS and your everyday experience in the market and use it to educate your client in any of several ways, using appropriate technology tools: an e-mail summary, a printed or PDF document, or a spreadsheet. Often, this information is used in a formal listing presentation, produced in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, but even if you don't make a formal presentation, the seller will want to know this.

With the initial market education handled, offer the sellers the option of getting automatic e-mail notifications as other properties come on the market in their neighborhood. Sellers are naturally curious about the competition, so help them satisfy that curiosity and see how you've in fact helped price their property appropriately. (If you're talking to prospective sellers, also offer this service to help them track the market so they're properly educated about the actual conditions when they're ready to sell.) Your local MLS system typically offers such notification capability, as do some larger brokerages.

Don't forget to provide other basic education via e-mail, paper document, or PDF file, such as a checklist of steps the seller must make to prepare the house, disclosure requirements, transfer taxes, and so on. These educational materials should be based on a master template file that you then customize for each client rather than starting from scratch each time. In some cases, you can provide Web-based resources as links copied into an e-mail or through your Web site. For example, provide a link to your city's housing office for information on rent control rules, condo conversion procedures, permit history order forms, or transfer tax rates.