How To Talk A Seller Off An Inflated Price Without Telling Them Anything
Agree to the seller's number out loud, then ask one question. Three sentences and they name the risks themselves, which is the objection you can actually answer.
Brandon Mulrenin sets the scene on a group coaching call. You want to list at 300. The seller wants 350.
He names what almost everyone does next.
"Most of us get right into tell mode."
Tell mode is the part you are good at. The comps, the days on market, the chart of price reductions, the story about the last seller who chased the market down. All of it is you explaining why the seller is wrong.
Then he gives the replacement out loud, stumble and all.
"We can absolutely list it at 350. You know, there's some risks with that. In your opinion, what … might some of those be?"
And the reason it works.
"So, it's the opposite of telling."
He runs the same move as a general practice. Take any sentence you routinely deliver, like telling them it is a seller's market, and turn it into a question that makes the seller say it instead.
One caution he gives on the call: delivered wrong, this lands as condescending. Say it flat and genuinely curious, not as a trap being sprung.
Almost every overpricing script on the market is a better way to say no. This one says yes first, then makes the seller supply the case against their own number. Two things happen in that single sentence. You stop being the obstacle, so there is nothing left to argue with. And the risks arrive in the seller's voice, which is the only voice they will not push back on.
It also survives the moment you dread, which is the seller digging in and taking the higher number anyway. You already agreed, so nothing was lost. The list of risks you are now holding is theirs, in their words. That makes the price talk two weeks later a matter of reading it back rather than winning it.
- Next time a seller names a price above your opinion of value, agree to it out loud. Then ask them to name the risks. Mulrenin does it on the call like this. We can absolutely list it at that number. There are some risks with that. And in your opinion, what might some of those be?
- Write down the risks they name in front of them. Those are the words you quote back at the price talk two weeks in.
- Look for the other places you tell instead of ask. Mulrenin flips any line he says often, like telling them it is a seller's market, into a question that makes them say it.