😲 The Cruelest Thing In Real Estate 😲

Why ‘Get the Listing to Get the Price Reduction’ Is Costing Sellers More Than They Know

Years ago, I heard a phrase from ‘an industry leader.’ He said it matter-of-factly, like it was just the way things were done:

“Get the listing to get the price reduction.”
I’ve never forgotten it – it shocked me at the time, and every time I’ve run into it since it’s grieved me to see what it does to the people on the receiving end.

How It Works & Why It Persists
The strategy is simple: an agent wins a listing by telling the seller what they want to hear – a high price estimate – rather than giving an honest market assessment. Once the listing is secured, the agent manages a gradual retreat toward reality through a series of conversations about price reductions. Sometimes agents will call it “buying the listing.” Whatever anyway calls it, the mechanics are the same.

It persists because it works – for the agent, in the short term. Win the listing, get the commission when it eventually sells. The seller’s experience along the way is someone else’s problem. And sellers often don’t realize they’ve been played until months into a painful process, when inertia has set in and starting over feels like admitting defeat.

The Real Cost
In any market, overpricing a listing is costly. In a downtrending market, it can be devastating to a seller’s outcome.

When a home is listed above market value, it attracts limited showings. The home sits. Days on market accumulate. Meanwhile, in a falling market, the comps that justified last month’s price are being replaced by lower ones. The seller isn’t just failing to sell – they’re falling behind.

Every week a home sits overpriced in a downtrending market,
the seller is fighting two battles at once: the stigma of sitting and
the erosion of market value beneath them.

A home with 60 or 90 days on market and multiple price reductions sends a signal to buyers – even when nothing is wrong with the property. Buyers start wondering what others saw and passed on. They lowball. Or they scroll right by. The seller who listed at $1,050,000 when the honest number was $940,000 often ends up – four months and two price reductions later – selling for less than a correct day-one price would have achieved, plus the added carrying costs of months of additional mortgage and tax.

Right now, in the Lower Mainland, sellers pricing based on peak comparables or emotional attachment are facing a real reckoning. The buyers are there. But they have inventory and patience, and they’re not going to overpay.

The Part That’s Actually Dishonest
Not every agent who overprices a listing is acting in bad faith. Some are too optimistic. Some can’t hold their ground under seller pressure. But the deliberate version – pricing high to win the listing, fully intending to manage reductions later – is knowingly telling a client something you don’t believe in order to secure their business. I’d say that’s a problem.

And the damage isn’t only financial. Sellers who go through this feel blindsided – and they should. The trust that’s supposed to be the foundation of the relationship was used to win a contract, not to serve the client.

What Honest Representation Looks Like
I’m not arguing that sellers don’t have the right to list wherever they want. They do. But it has to be an informed decision.

Our job is to give sellers my honest professional opinion before they decide – and to hold it even when they push back. If a seller wants to list above our recommended price, we’ll respect that choice. But they’re going to know, clearly and on the record, that we believe we’re priced above market. And before the sign goes in the yard, we’ll have a plan for what happens if the first two weeks confirm it.

The price reduction conversation belongs before the listing goes live – not six weeks in when everyone is frustrated and the market has moved.

The Bottom Line
The cruelest thing an agent can do is tell a seller what they want to hear, collect the listing, and then walk them through a slow and painful education in market reality – while their equity quietly erodes.

There is a version of this process where the seller is treated as a partner, given honest information, and allowed to make fully informed decisions. And there is a version where they’re told a number that wins the listing. Those are not the same thing. When you’re choosing who to trust with the largest financial transaction of your year – maybe your decade – it’s worth knowing which version you’re getting. Reach out to us today for a fair market value assessment based in real market data.