Here’s a key question when it comes to pricing: Who’s influencing who in a listing meeting?

When you walk into a house, remember you’re the expert. As a real estate professional, you're looking at homes every single day. You’re showing properties, scanning the MLS, reviewing the hot sheet, and touring listings. That’s why clients hire us and pay tens of thousands of dollars. Because we know the market.

Most of us walk into a home with a gut number. You know what I mean. You look around and think, This house will sell for $454K or $625K. And you’re usually pretty close.

But here's what happens: You walk in with that gut number... and then the seller starts talking.

They show you every improvement, tell you why they love the house, and explain why they think it’s worth more. Before you know it, you're moving your number toward their number.

But it should be the other way around:

You should be influencing them. You are the expert. And if you want to price a home where it will actual...

When we're talking to our sellers and giving them feedback each week about what's happening in the market, it's really important that we educate them on a few things that often get missed.

One of those is the power of virtual showings.

So what’s a virtual showing? A virtual showing is when someone visits your listing online. They may or may not come see it in person, but that initial view online is still a strong signal. It means your marketing is working—it's attracting people to look at the listing on Zillow, Realtor.com, your own website, or the MLS.

From there, the buyer decides: Is the listing priced right? Does it look like it’s in great condition? Is it staged properly? A number of other factors come into play once they arrive at the listing page—but your job is to get them there.

And when you’re talking to our sellers every week—and this is how you earn price adjustments, by the way—you need to bring up virtual showings.

Right now, price adjustments are on the rise. About ...

As we approach the end of summer, many listings might still be lingering on the market. Currently, two-thirds of listings in the U.S. have been on the market for over 30 days, and 40% have been on the market for over 60 days. We're seeing more listings and less activity on the sales side, leading to a buildup of inventory and a shift toward a buyer's market.

If you have a listing that’s been on the market for a few weeks with little activity, try this script:

"Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Seller, this week I’m refreshing all my listings. Here’s what that means: I’ll be updating the lead photos so your listing looks new in the MLS. I’ll also revise the property description and review all the data points to ensure everything is accurate.

I’ll also schedule a 'meeting the market' to discuss any potential improvements to the listing. This meeting involves considering any incentives we might offer buyers or buyer’s agents. For buyers, we could consider offering to buy down the interest rate, contri...