A Floyd Wickman Blog by Mike Pallin Most markets today are short of listings, and certainly short of the mainstream, or entry level, listings that appeal to those most likely to be buying.

Wickman Selling 101 teaches us that listings are the name of the game. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know it’s truer than ever today. So, why is inventory so low? Why isn’t everybody out there beating the bushes for listings?

It can’t be that absolutely nobody has to sell, or nobody wants to sell, or nobody is thinking about selling. Can it?

Or is it just that nobody’s selling now because there’s nothing out there for them to buy even if they did?

Or is it that everybody is waiting until after the election? Or to see what interest rates are going to do?

Or is it a fundamental shift in the nature of the real estate business, and we’re only going to be allowed to work with buyers from now on?

I know. Maybe it’s all of the above, and some other unthinkable things I can’t think of right now.

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because too many haven’t taken that first important step to getting listings. The first step has nothing to do with activity, or economics, or elections, or interest rates, or the general mood of the public.

Time to trot out a few old clichés about steps. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Take things one step at a time. Start with step one. That hardest step to take to start working out is getting up off the couch and putting on the first shoe.

What’s that all-important first step to getting listings? Buy in. That’s right, don’t buy in to all the excuses and reasons why you can’t get listings now. Buy in to being a lister.

Listings prospect for you. Agents are spending fortunes these days buying leads, and yet anyone could have more leads than they could handle if they would just go out and get an unfair share of the listings.

If you had all the listings, roughly what percentage of the closings would you be in on?

Getting a buyer to the closing table takes roughly four times as much time and effort than getting a sold listing to the closing table.

Listings sell while you are on vacation.

You control your time, you control the transaction and you control your income when you control the listing inventory.

And, finally, in most places in America, you can still sell your own listing and make way more commission than if a co-broke sells it.

There. Did that help? Have you bought in yet? Come on, none of that ‘Yeah, but’ stuff. Or ‘I tried that once and it didn’t work.’

Get your head on straight and, “Starting every Monday work on bringing in a saleable listing first.”

Thanks, Floyd!