How do I price a listing with the seller instead of for them?
To price with the seller, bring what buyers paid nearby, with dates, lay it out in order, and ask the seller what they see before you say what you think. A price the seller reasons their way to is one they will stand behind.
Read the transcript
- Our neighbor's house sold for a lot, so we want to start well above these.
- So you'll list it there?
- Honestly, that's too high.
- I've already run the numbers, and here's the price we need to list at.
- Trust me on this one.
- After every practice call, your card arrives: what worked, and the one thing to fix.
- The call trains four moves. Bring what buyers paid nearby, with dates.
- Lay it out in order. Ask the seller what they see.
- Then say what you think.
- A figure that comes from your side of the table, even well supported,
- is your opinion against theirs.
- A price the seller reasons their way to is one they will stand behind.
- Practice it until it sounds like you.
- Each call runs as long as the conversation needs,
- and you can make as many as you want.
- Practice free at 10before10.com/try.
Drafted with AI by the 10before10 team, reviewed and approved by Grant Freer and Gia Freer, licensed Florida real estate brokers. Updated October 24, 2026.
What is really being said
When a seller pushes back on price, they are rarely arguing about the number alone. They are telling you they were not part of arriving at it. A figure that comes from your side of the table, even well supported, is your opinion against theirs.
A figure the seller reasons their way to, with the same facts in front of both of you, is theirs. That is the whole difference between pricing for a seller and pricing with one.
Most sellers have a number in mind before you arrive. It came from a neighbor, a website, what they paid, or what they need for the next house. It is not wrong to have it.
It is the starting point of the conversation, not the enemy of it. Your job is not to replace their number with yours. It is to put what buyers actually paid nearby, with dates, on the table between you, and to let them look.
This page is about the conversation. It is not about how to value a home, and nothing here produces a number. The sold data does the talking.
The seller does the reasoning. You ask the questions that keep the reasoning honest.
What to say
These are examples in plain words, not lines to memorize. Say them the way you talk.
"Before I say anything about price, I want to show you what has sold near you and when. Then I would rather hear what you make of it than tell you what I make of it."
This sets the order: evidence first, their read second, yours last. A seller who is asked to look before being told what to see stays in the conversation instead of preparing a rebuttal.
"You said the one on the corner sold for more. It did, and it closed in the spring. What do you think buyers saw there that they might not see here, or the other way around?"
This uses the seller's own example and asks them to compare, which they can do better than you because they know their house. The point is not to win the comparison. It is to get them reasoning from the sales instead of from hope.
"So what I am hearing is that you would rather start higher and see, and you know the first weeks are when the most buyers look. Is that right? Then there are two ways to do that, and both are fine with me: start there with a date on the calendar to look at the showings together, or start closer to what has closed.
You choose."
Play it back and get the nod before you offer options. The seller hears their own reasoning restated without judgment, which is the moment they usually soften it themselves. Then the options are theirs, including the one you would not pick.
What not to do
Do not open with your number. Once it is said, every sale you show afterward looks like a case you are building. Show first, ask second, and hold your own view until they ask for it.
Do not argue with their sources. The neighbor, the website, the cousin who sells houses two states away: dismissing any of them dismisses the seller. Ask what that source was looking at, and put it beside what actually closed.
Do not manufacture urgency. "If you wait, you will lose" is a forecast, and you do not know it. Say what is on the market today, what sold and when, and what the house costs them each month while it waits.
The truth is enough, and it survives the seller reading the transcript the next morning.
How to practice it
Have a colleague play a seller with a number in mind and a reason for it. Your rule: you may not state a price or a range until the seller has looked at three sales and told you what they see. Practice the order out loud: the sales, their read, your question, the playback, the options.
Run it five times and change the seller's reason each time: a neighbor's sale, a website, what they owe, what they need for the next house. Read your scorecard and the call's transcript for the moment you start telling instead of asking. That is the habit to fix, and it is one 10before10™'s card listens for on the pricing drill.
Honest answers
Related answers
Make one practice call. See your card.
A prospect who sounds real raises this exact moment. Ten minutes, in the browser, no account. The scorecard tells you the one thing to fix.