Each week on The Download, Inman’s Christy Murdock takes a deeper look at the top-read stories of the week to give you what you’ll need to meet Monday head-on. This week: It’s one of our readers’ favorite topics right now, so we’re rounding up great contributor insights from agents and brokers with boots on the ground to help you help your sellers.
You know that old saying, “Be careful what you wish for.” Well, when it comes to inventory, that’s ringing true right now, as we’re seeing growing numbers of delistings, coupled with rising interest rates (again), lagging price growth and increasing uncertainty about tariffs and their impact on the economy.
READ: ‘Uber depressed’ home sales prompt stark ‘red flare’ warning from
But big-picture economic and real estate data is one thing; what’s happening in your neighborhood is another. That’s why Inman is bringing you insight into your local market with our Market View data tool, along with real-world advice from agents and brokers at the top of their game.
Inman Market View: Peer deep inside the inventory by Daniel Houston
Inman Market View offers a new series of tools for Select subscribers, utilizing listing data from Realtor.com and analysis by Inman’s staff to help place local market data in context amid a shifting residential real estate market.
Here you can interact with maps and charts tracking hundreds of metropolitan areas. Compare market movements over time or compare your market to a neighboring or feeder market. Evaluate data on supply and demand, days on market, list prices and brokerage commissions.
It’s one more way Inman is helping to bring hyperlocal, hyper-personalized information to you, so that you always have a leg up on the competition.
As your listings languish on the market, you’re looking for ways to reset them and make them more appealing. As eXp’s Wendy Forsythe said in her recent Q&A:
I think for a lot of agents, this is the first time in a long time that they’re carrying listing inventory for an extended period of time. I think we got really used to listing and selling so quickly that agents weren’t carrying listings for months at a time; now we’re seeing extended days on market.
So agents are having to either relearn or, in some cases, learn for the first time, what it’s like to carry a listing for an extended period of time, and then what that means to service the seller, develop communications with the seller and manage expectations with the seller over the course of that listing period.
Recently, you can’t seem to get enough of this contributed story from coach Darryl Davis:
7 proven ways to revive a listing without dropping the price
A price drop is not your only option when the market’s slow or the listing’s stale. Davis offers strategies to reboot and relaunch that property.
That’s an absolute must-read, and here are some more of Davis’ listing-focused stories — so you’ll always have great ideas to share with your (somewhat discouraged) sellers:
13 tips for turning your summer open house into a marketing
A great open house is more than a walkthrough; it’s a full-blown marketing event. Davis shares ways to make the most of the opportunity.
The price isn’t right? How to talk sellers through their
Sellers don’t want the slickest pitch or biggest promise, Davis writes. They want guidance without pressure. Here’s how to talk them through pricing objections and win the listing.
How to keep a listing (and your sanity) when sellers won’t
As a listing agent, you didn’t sign up to be steamrolled. You signed up to serve. Davis shares strategies for working with difficult sellers.
Christy Murdock is a writer, coach and consultant and the owner of Writing Real Estate. Connect with Writing Real Estate on Instagram and subscribe to the weekly roundup, The Ketchup.