Your Side of the Table
It is time to sell. You have lived in your home for almost ten years. It is the house you, your family and friends will remember. You spent a full year remodeling it, but that was eight years ago. It is still in good shape, but it is full of belongings and feels miles from being ready to sell. You check the Zillow and Redfin estimates and chat with a neighbor who recently sold. None of the numbers match. Eventually, everyone gives you the same advice: call a real estate agent.
The Other Side of the Table (Now consider the same meeting from the agent's side)
The agent receives a call from a homeowner who was referred by a neighbor. Before the meeting, the agent reviews recent sales and forms an initial, very rough opinion of value. After the home tour, some of those assumptions change. The home is better than expected in certain ways, yet not ready to show. And the agent does not yet know how much preparation the seller is willing to undertake. The closest comparable sales are several months old, and none is a perfect match. The agent has an informed opinion on a likely range, but not an exact answer.
The Question
You then sit down at the dining table with the agent and ask: "What do you think my home will sell for?" Nearly everything that makes the pricing conversation difficult for both the agent and seller is contained in that moment.
You are not wrong for wanting to know what your home will sell for, nor for wanting a dependable number. Clearly, key decisions depend on it. Now you want certainty from an expert, yet no expert can offer that certainty. The final sale price is not information anyone possesses before a home goes on the market. It is information the market produces through buyer behavior: Are there showings leading to offers? Or silence?
How An Opinion Becomes a Promise
The agent wants to provide guidance and an honest answer. They also want the listing. If the agent gives an opinion below the seller's expectations, the seller might choose another agent who suggests a higher number. If the agent gives a higher opinion, it may improve the chances of being hired, but can create a problem with trust and the relationship if buyers do not agree with that value. If the agent says, "I do not know exactly," the seller may wonder why the expert has no answer. And so, despite the obvious risks, an agent often presents a number with more confidence than the evidence supports. What happens then? The seller feels relief. The unknown starts to feel settled, and now plans can be made and financial expectations can be sorted out. While no one in that meeting calls the price prediction a "guarantee," that prediction ends up functioning like one and expectations become embedded. What started as an opinion can evolve into the expectation of a promise to be fulfilled, making it harder to hear feedback as the marketing period progresses.
What the Honest Conversation Sounds Like
Certainly, a good agent has a clear opinion and can support it with comparable sales, current competition, and the range the evidence supports. But they should also be clear about where their knowledge ends. An honest answer might sound like this: "That is a good question. It would take a lot of stress out of the process if we could know the answer with certainty upfront. But no agent, seller, or algorithm can predict exactly what a buyer will pay. What I can give you is an informed opinion about the likely range, explain how I reached it, and discuss how buyers may respond. It is a starting point, not a promise or prediction."
What Sellers Can Do
Here are four ways to get a more useful conversation out of a pricing discussion:
- Ask for a range and the reasoning, not just the number. Ask the agent what range the evidence supports and how they reached it. The reasoning behind the opinion is more useful than a single number.
- Ask how the proposed price is expected to affect buyer behavior. Ask whether the price is likely to encourage showings, limit the buyer pool, or depend on finding one buyer willing to pay a premium, who may or may not materialize.
- Do not choose an agent based on the highest estimate. The highest opinion is not necessarily the most accurate. Pay attention to how well the agent supports the number and how honestly they discuss uncertainty.
- Choose the agent before choosing the price. It's okay to discuss a possible range, but make the final pricing decision after selecting the agent. The conversation is usually more honest once the agent is no longer competing for the listing.
Our Approach
The most useful pricing conversation is not the one with the highest number or the greatest display of confidence. It is the one where both parties understand the reasoning behind the opinion, where that opinion ends, and where the market takes over. Certainty was never available at the dining table. Whether a seller wants to test the market at a high price, take a middle position, or price for multiple offers, it requires an honest conversation. This is why we treat pricing as a strategy with a variety of potential outcomes, not a prediction. We tell you what we know and what nobody can yet know until the market is tested. Then we keep talking once buyers start responding, because that is when the real answer arrives.
Your Trusted Advisors,
Peter and Tregg
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