When you meet with potential sellers for a listing appointment, what do you need to bring to get potential clients to sign a listing agreement? Listing appointments require a real estate agent to prepare for potential sellers to say, “We want to list our home today!” Have your essentials ready to get the job done.
For tips on how to get a real estate listing, check out our guide at Become a Local Leader® on generating more listing leads. Then prepare to get a new listing as you pack your essential items of what to bring to a listing appointment and get started on the selling process.
1. Preliminary Comparative Market Analysis (CMA)
The first thing a real estate agent needs is a CMA. Even if you haven’t toured the home yet, you can likely find similar floor plans in the neighborhood that sold within the last six months. Many prospective sellers want to see three to five similar home comparisons. Don’t forget value adjustments based on the neighborhood, lot size, school zoning, and insurance or tax requirements.
Remember that your CMA should be accurate, not just what a potential seller would want to hear. You should be able to explain why each sale on your CMA sold at the price it did, and what your prospective client’s home might get based on your observations around their home. Inflating the sales price to get the listing could leave the home sitting on the market longer.
Once you have the opportunity to see the home, you can make adjustments and send an updated CMA to your potential clients after the listing appointment if you noticed anything that could change your home value estimate. For example, did the current owners recently renovate any rooms or improve the landscaping? Adjust your values as necessary to provide an accurate outlook.
2. Listing Presentation
Designing an elegant listing presentation in PowerPoint is straightforward and allows you to incorporate your data into easy-to-understand graphics. Your potential clients will understand a visual presentation more readily than several MLS printouts comparing different home values.
An effective listing presentation should describe your experience as a real estate agent and some information about your office, as well as local market statistics, your selling process, and your marketing tools. Sellers want to know how you’re going to sell their home for the price they want.
3. Relevant Measures of Success
Do you have an excellent record for selling homes quickly or getting multiple offers? Do many of your homes sell at the full asking price? Consider including some personal or brokerage statistics, including:
- 90% of homes sold in the first week
- 52% of homes listed received multiple offers
- 92% of homes sold at full price
- 14 average days on market
- Listings with our office sell for 4.2% more than other area brokerages
4. Personal Experience in the Neighborhood
Have you worked in the community before as either a buyer’s or seller’s agent? You can position yourself as the neighborhood expert with prior knowledge of which school zoning a prospective seller’s home has, along with nearby attractions, community amenities, and local regulations.
5. Media Samples
Keep a presentation of marketing samples from properties that you have sold quickly. Include direct mail postcards, newspaper ads, flier box fliers, luxury brochures, and social media posts. Be ready to explain cross-posting between your MLS, Zillow, Realtor.com, and other online listing resources.
6. Testimonials
Be ready to show that you’ve built excellent relationships with previous customers, especially sellers. Include a selection of 5-star ratings from Zillow, Google, and your social media profiles.
Testimonials demonstrate that you took the time and effort to build a strong relationship with a customer and that they appreciated your efforts enough to leave a review. You clearly value your customer relationships if you have several 5-star ratings across different platforms.
7. Net Sheets
You know sellers won’t walk away with the gross sale amount at closing. You can calculate a few estimates for a seller’s potential net income from their home sale. Include variations in costs, such as:
- Multiple inspection costs
- Special brokerage discounts
- Professional staging costs
- Professional photography/videography costs
- Estimated closing costs
- Commission discounts
Generate a few different estimates to help your prospective sellers understand what they could receive as a net value after closing on the sale of their homes.
8. Unique Selling Propositions (USPs)
Is there something unique about your selling process or the process used in your office that helps you outperform your competitors? Add it to your listing presentation. USPs could include anything that gives you or your office the edge, including:
- Broker offering $1000 of initial marketing costs for new listings before agents pay for additional marketing materials.
- Broker or agent offering to pay inspection and closing costs for listings of $500,000 or more.
- Free professional video tour for listings over $500,000.
- Always an agent on-floor when you call the main brokerage office phone number.
- Fluently bilingual to serve buyers and sellers without a translator.
9. A Listing Contract and Pre-Listing Documents
If everything goes well, your listing agreement is the most important item on the list of what to bring to a listing appointment. Although your sellers will likely need time to consider your recommendations and compare presentations from other real estate agents, if they’re ready to take the next step by the end of your appointment, you need to be, too.
You may also want to have a “coming soon” yard sign in your car ready to post (as long as there aren’t community guidelines barring yard signs). Be ready to hit the ground running with this listing.
Learn How to Get More Listing Appointments with Become a Local Leader®
Now that you know what to bring to a listing appointment, make sure to include the right information in your presentation with tips from our guide to a pre-listing presentation.
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