81% of Sellers Talk to Only One Agent. You Are Not in a Competition.
Sep 23, 2026By Jeff Levine, CEO, Levine Coaching Company. Published .
Most agents prepare for a listing appointment like it is a bake off. Bigger deck, better comps, more marketing slides than the other guy.
Here is the problem with that. According to the National Association of Realtors, 81 percent of sellers contacted only one agent before hiring the one they went with. Eight out of ten times, there is no other guy. You are not in a competition. You are in an audition of one, and the only person who can lose it is you.
I am running a free hour on exactly this on Thursday, September 24 at 1:00pm Eastern. It is called Good Agents Ask Great Questions. Register here, and bring a listing you are stuck on.
What sellers are actually deciding on
The same NAR research asks sellers what made them pick their agent. Reputation came in at 35 percent. Trustworthiness and honesty at 21 percent. That is 56 percent of the decision made on who you are, before anyone opens a folder.
Now look at what they say they want you to do. Help marketing the home, 22 percent. Pricing it competitively, 20 percent. Selling it inside a specific timeframe, 18 percent. Three things, and every one of them is a promise about an outcome, not a request for a slide.
And 66 percent of sellers found their agent through a referral or had worked with them before. Which means by the time you are sitting at the table, you usually have some borrowed trust already. Your job is not to build it from zero. Your job is not to spend it.
Put those numbers together and the picture is clear. You walk in with one competitor, which is the seller deciding not to hire anyone yet. You are being judged on reputation and honesty. And the seller wants to hear that you understand their situation before they hear what you are going to do about it.
Presenting first is how agents lose that. Nothing says "I have not thought about you specifically" like opening a prepared deck in the first five minutes.
The order matters more than the material
In twenty nine years and more than ten thousand transactions, the single biggest change I ever made to my own listing appointments was moving the presentation to the end and sometimes skipping it.
The structure I use is simple. Understand the move. Understand the money. Understand the timeline. Then, and only then, talk about the house and the plan.
Every question below is doing one job: getting the seller to say out loud something they have not said out loud yet. When a seller hears themselves describe their own constraint, the pricing conversation later stops being an argument.
The questions
1. Where are you going, and what has to be true for that to work?
Not "why are you selling." That gets you a shrug. This version gets you the actual plan and the actual pressure. Somebody moving to be near a grandchild in March has a different price tolerance than somebody who will move whenever.
Listen for the second half especially. What has to be true. That is usually where the number they need comes from, and it is a much better number to work with than the one they pulled off Zillow.
2. What happens if it does not sell?
This one is uncomfortable and it is the most useful question on the list.
Some sellers say they just stay, and that tells you they are testing a number and you should price accordingly or walk. Some go quiet, and that tells you there is a deadline they have not mentioned yet. Either answer is worth more than an hour of comps.
3. What do you owe, and what do you need to walk away with?
Agents skip this because it feels intrusive. It is not intrusive, it is the job. You cannot advise on price without knowing the floor, and a seller who cannot clear their mortgage at market has a completely different problem than the one they called you about.
Ask it plainly and without apology. Sellers respect it. The ones who bristle are telling you something too.
4. Have you sold a house before, and how did it go?
You are looking for the scar. A seller who had a deal fall apart at inspection last time is going to behave differently at inspection this time, and you would rather know that in the living room than on day 32.
It also tells you what they think an agent is for, which tells you what they will judge you on.
5. What have you already done to get ready?
This surfaces two things at once. What they have spent, which they will absolutely try to get back in the price. And how they see the house, which is usually more generous than how the market sees it.
Better to hear "we put in forty thousand of landscaping" now than after you have given them a number.
6. When you picture this going well, what does that look like?
Let them define the win. Some say a number. Some say a date. Some say "no drama." You cannot deliver on a definition of success you never asked for, and you would be amazed how often the seller's actual definition is easier to hit than the one you assumed.
7. What would make you unhappy with me in sixty days?
Almost nobody asks this and it does more for trust than anything else in the appointment. You get their real fear, usually about communication, and you get permission to build the relationship around avoiding it.
It also sets up the pricing conversation, because "you told me it would sell and it did not" is the most common answer and it hands you the opening to talk about launching correctly.
8. If the market tells us in three weeks that we are high, what do you want to do about it?
Ask it before you ever name a price.
This is how you get the review date agreed to at the appointment instead of negotiated at day 45. In a market where one in four active Florida listings is already carrying a price cut, that one agreement is worth more than everything on your marketing page. I wrote about what the delay actually costs last week.
What to do with the answers
Say them back. Out loud, in their words, before you present anything.
"So you need to be in Charlotte by March, you need about $310,000 to close on the next place, you have been burned at inspection before, and the thing that would make you unhappy with me is going three weeks without hearing from me. Do I have that right?"
When a seller hears their own situation repeated accurately, you are hired. Everything after that is logistics. And notice what you did not do: you did not out present anybody, because there was nobody to out present.
If you get to the end of the appointment and you still want to walk through your marketing plan, go ahead. It will take four minutes instead of forty, and it will land, because by then they are listening.
The one to start with this week
If you only add one question, make it number seven. What would make you unhappy with me in sixty days. Use it on your next appointment and on your next two listing check in calls with sellers you already have.
You will get an honest answer, and honest answers are the whole business.
Frequently asked questions
How many agents do sellers interview before choosing one?
According to the National Association of Realtors Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 81 percent of recent sellers contacted only one agent before hiring the agent they worked with. Most listing appointments are not competitive presentations against another agent, they are a single conversation the seller can either say yes or no to.
What do sellers care most about when choosing a listing agent?
Reputation was cited by 35 percent of sellers and trustworthiness or honesty by 21 percent, so more than half the decision rests on character rather than presentation. What sellers want the agent to do is help market the home (22 percent), price it competitively (20 percent) and sell it within a specific timeframe (18 percent).
What questions should a listing agent ask a seller?
Ask where they are going and what has to be true for that to work, what happens if it does not sell, what they owe and what they need to net, whether they have sold before and how it went, what they have already spent getting ready, what a good outcome looks like to them, what would make them unhappy with you in sixty days, and what they want to do if the market says the price is high in three weeks.
Should I present my marketing plan at the listing appointment?
Present it last, if at all. Sellers are deciding largely on reputation and trust, and opening a prepared deck in the first five minutes signals that you have not thought about their situation specifically. Ask first, repeat their situation back to them in their own words, and the presentation becomes a four minute confirmation rather than a forty minute pitch.
How do I get a seller to agree to a price reduction in advance?
Ask what they want to do if the market tells you the price is high in three weeks, and ask it before you name a price. That converts the review date into a decision the seller made themselves at the appointment, rather than a concession you have to negotiate at day 45 when the listing has already gone stale.
Let's talk
Tomorrow, Thursday September 24 at 1:00pm Eastern, I am running a free one hour session on this exact subject. Good Agents Ask Great Questions. Bring a seller you are stuck with and we will work it live. Register here.
And if you want the full version, the twelve week Profitable on Purpose class starts October 1. Listing appointments and pricing strategy are two of the twelve modules. Details here.
Jeff Levine is a Broker Associate and Team Leader of Lux Places Group at RE/MAX Services in Boca Raton, Florida, and the Founder and CEO of Levine Coaching Company. He has twenty nine years in real estate, more than ten thousand transactions and over three billion dollars in closed volume. He is the 2026 Vice President and 2027 President Elect of Florida Realtors, a Past President of Broward, Palm Beaches & St. Lucie Realtors, a licensed Florida real estate instructor, and holds the CIPS, ABR, CRS, SRES and PSA designations.
Sources: National Association of Realtors Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers; Florida active listing price reduction data, July 2026.
Published by Levine Coaching Company.