When the house down the street sold for more

They're not wrong. They're incomplete.

The seller has one fact: a price. They don't have the terms, the timing, the condition, or what the sellers gave back at closing. They don't know whether that house had a new roof or whether the buyer paid over asking because two offers came in the same weekend. One number, no context, and they've built a whole story on it.

So don't tell them they're wrong. Tell them they're missing the rest. "That's a real sale and it matters. Let's pull it up and look at the whole thing, price included." Curiosity beats correction every time, and it keeps you on the same side of the table.

Pull the sale up together.

Open your MLS with the seller watching. Show them the list price, the sale price, the days it took to go under contract, when it closed, the square footage, the year it was built, and what the listing said it had. If the record shows the sellers paid part of the buyer's costs, point to it. A price with concessions behind it isn't the price the seller heard.

Walk through it like you're both seeing it for the first time. "Here's what it listed at. Here's what it sold for. Here's how long it sat. Here's what it had that ours doesn't, and here's what ours has that it didn't." No summary. Let them read the lines.

Do this once, properly, and the barbecue number loses its power. It becomes a listing sheet like any other.

The three things a price never tells you.

Timing. That house may have gone under contract in a different market than the one you're in now, even if it was only a few months ago. Condition. A renovated kitchen and a new roof move a price in ways a drive-by never shows. Terms. A fast close, a big cash gap, or no repairs asked can be worth real money to a seller, and none of it shows up in the number the neighbor repeated.

Say all three in plain words, every time this comes up. Sellers hear about prices constantly. They almost never hear that a price is the last line of a story, and that the story is where the difference lives.

When the neighbor really did get more for the same house.

Sometimes you pull it up and the story is simple. Same size, same age, similar condition, closed recently, higher price. Don't dodge that. "You're right. That sale says our price may be under the market." Then act on it. Raise the conversation about where your listing should sit, and do it that week.

Or the market moved up and you listed before it did. Same answer. The seller just handed you a comp that helps them, and the right response is to say thank you and use it. Nothing builds trust faster than an agent who changes their mind in front of the evidence.

Put it in next week's report.

That sale is now part of the comp set, permanently. It shows up in the weekly update next to your seller's listing, with its price and its days and its square footage, every week until it ages out. The seller watches it sit there beside the others, and the argument is over because there's nothing left to argue about.

That's the quiet payoff of a report that lists every nearby sale by address. The neighbor's house was always going to come up. When it's already in the report, it comes up as data instead of as a surprise, and your seller has already read it twice!