Paul & Greg — The Listing Table: Walk Them Through the Market First (8/26/2026)

Four agents are pitching for the same listing and three of them will lead with a number. Here is what to do with the first ten minutes instead. Paul opens on why the market feels strange to so many agents right now, then spends the rest of the session on what to actually do about it. Inventory, pricing and rates are outside your control, so the place to compete is the one thing that is not: how you show up at the listing table. Most agents walk the house, admire the kitchen, suggest some staging, and land on a number, which leaves the seller choosing an agent by comparing numbers. The alternative costs ten minutes. Sit down first and ask permission to walk them through their own marketplace: what months of supply actually means, what the last decade and a half did to values, and where their neighborhood sits today. Greg's addition is that none of it works without trust, and that the fastest way to build it is to put the market on the far side of the table so you and the seller are looking at it together instead of at each other. What's covered: • Why inventory, pricing and rates are the wrong things to spend worry on • What most agents do at a listing appointment, and why it ends in a number comparison • The one question to ask before you talk about the house at all • How to walk a seller through their own market without it turning into a lecture • Why putting the market on the other side of the table takes the pressure off you • What to print and bring as a leave-behind • How to have a seller saying yes from the moment you sit down Chapters: 0:00 Back to school, and the market feels weird 0:55 What agents are actually asking right now 1:43 Months of supply: seller, neutral, or buyer market 2:08 Fourteen years of growth, and why it could not hold 3:18 What you cannot control, and what you can 3:50 The easy market made everyone look like a hero 4:50 Competing against three other agents for one listing 5:28 Compete as the educator, not on the number 5:51 The question to ask before you talk about the house 6:31 Walking a seller through the last fifteen years 7:52 Nobody hires you until they trust you 9:02 Sit on their side, with the market opposite 10:00 Ask about their goals, and where the stress is 12:35 Know the data yourself first 12:48 Where to find it, down to the neighborhood 14:47 Print the charts and bring them with you 16:47 Why this is the differentiator at the listing table 18:07 You are the guide, not the interviewee 18:49 Bring a leave-behind to your next appointment 19:15 Ask permission, and get a yes first Questions answered: Q: I have a listing appointment against three other agents. What actually separates me? A: Being the one who explains the market to them. Ask permission to walk them through it before you talk about the house, and you have changed what they are comparing you on. Everyone else is going to show up with a number. Q: Will a seller not find a market walkthrough boring? A: The opposite, in Paul's experience. Almost every seller says nobody has ever done it for them. It also relaxes the room, because you are not talking about them and you are not talking about yourself. Q: I do not know my market numbers well enough to talk about them. Where do I start? A: Pull the market data for a couple of areas you work, in Homebase, and sit with it until the talking points are second nature. If you cannot explain a chart, that is the work. Getting the data is easy now. Being fluent in it is the differentiator. Session: Paul & Greg, recorded August 26, 2026 — Five Star Real Estate: the most supportive brokerage on the planet. Five Star: https://fivestarleaders.com Homebase, agent resources: https://homebase.fivestarleaders.com/ More Paul & Greg sessions:    • Paul & Greg 2026