When two sellers disagree on price
One of them wants to list high and see what happens. The other wants it gone by Thanksgiving. They're both looking at you to settle it. Don't. Bring in a third voice instead.
Your job is the market's number, not the winner's.
The moment you side with one owner, you've lost the other, and you need both signatures. So take yourself out of the referee's chair before the meeting starts. "I'm not here to pick between your two numbers. I'm here to show you what buyers have been paying for homes like this, and then the three of us decide together."
That sentence changes the shape of the room. It's no longer two people arguing with an agent keeping score. It's three people looking at the same page. The comps become the one voice in the room with no stake in who's right, and that's the voice you want doing the hard part.
Ask each of them the same question.
Before you show a single number, let each owner say theirs and why. Same question to both, in the same words. "What's the number you'd regret? Too low, and you'd always wonder. Too high, and the house sits. Where's that line for you?" Then let the other one answer the same thing without interrupting.
You'll learn something. The one who wants to list high is usually protecting against regret. The one who wants it gone is usually protecting against months of showings and a second mortgage payment. Neither is wrong. They're afraid of different things, and once that's said out loud, the argument gets quieter.
Let's put all three numbers on one page.
Write them down side by side. The higher number, the lower number, and the number the closed sales support. Under each one, say what it does. Which search brackets it lands in. How it compares to the homes currently competing. What the buyers who've been paying for similar homes would see when they open the listing.
Then walk through it. "At this number, you're above everything that's sold and above the two homes competing with you right now. Buyers will see those first. At this one, you're in line with what closed, and the house shows up next to homes that already sold at that level." No verdict. Just what each number does when it meets the market.
Leave the page with them. People argue less with a sheet of paper than with each other.
Agree on the trigger, not the price.
Often the real compromise isn't a number in the middle. It's a plan with a date. "We list at the higher number. If we don't have an offer or steady showings by a date we pick now, we move to the market number without another debate. Both of you sign that plan today." The higher-number owner gets their shot. The lower-number owner gets a guarantee that the shot has an end.
Write the trigger into your notes and into the first update. A plan both owners agreed to in advance is one you can carry out without reopening the fight. When the date arrives, you're not asking for a reduction. You're following the plan they made.
Send every update to both of them.
From the first week, both owners get the same report at the same time. Never one, who then relays it to the other. Secondhand news between two people who already disagree turns into a new argument every Thursday, and you'll be the subject of it.
Same numbers, same day, both inboxes. Then when the trigger date comes, nobody is surprised and nobody is hearing it from their spouse. They've both watched the same showings and the same comps for weeks, and the next step reads like the plan they signed. Running the meeting that way wins the listing and keeps it. Nice work!
Common questions
What if one owner won't come to the pricing meeting?
Reschedule until both can be there, even if it's by video. A pricing decision made by one owner and relayed to the other tends to get unmade. If it truly can't happen, send both the same page and ask both to reply to you directly before anything is signed.
What if the sale is part of a divorce or a split?
Keep every message to both parties, keep it about the house, and keep the plan in writing. Don't get pulled into the rest. The trigger-date approach works especially well here. It replaces a negotiation between two people who don't want to negotiate with a schedule they both agreed to once.
Should I take a listing priced at the higher number?
Only with the trigger written down and both signatures on it. A high start with a dated plan to adjust is a strategy. A high start with no plan is a listing you'll be fighting about for months, and the lower-number owner already knows it.
Send this every week without building it by hand.
Get The Listing, Keep The Listing writes the weekly seller report in your name: their showings against the market, the homes competing with theirs, and what buyer agents said. You read it and send it from your own inbox.