Look, I want to talk about something that came across my desk from HousingWire that really hits home for how we work with sellers in our market. A real estate coach named Darryl Davis wrote about commission conversations, and it's genuinely worth thinking through because I see agents handle this the wrong way all the time.
The situation is simple enough. A homeowner texts a few agents asking what their commission is. One agent refuses to answer by text and politely holds his ground. The homeowner gets frustrated, feels like the agent is dodging, and that lead goes nowhere. Now here's the thing that caught my attention. The agent had good instincts. You really shouldn't quote commission by text because a number without context is meaningless, and you can't explain your value in a text message. That's all true. But refusing to engage with the question at all is a different animal entirely. When someone asks what you charge and you won't answer, they assume you're hiding something, not that you have a disciplined process.
According to Davis, the better move is to honor the question but redirect it to a real conversation. Instead of refusing, you acknowledge the question and ask if they've got time for a quick call. That takes ninety seconds and suddenly you're not dodging anything. Once you're on the phone, you actually give them a number, but you frame it first. Davis suggests talking about how price and quality usually move together in most service industries, so a lower fee typically means lower service and lower marketing push, which affects the final sale price. That reframes the whole conversation away from just finding the cheapest agent.
When you do quote a number, Davis recommends giving a range rather than a flat percentage and tie it directly to what the seller needs and the marketing plan you'll build. A range makes sense because different situations require different effort levels. Then here's the interesting part. According to Davis, you should actually tell the homeowner to interview all their candidates properly, to ask agents what they'll do to get the highest price, not just what they charge. It sounds counterintuitive to coach someone on how to hire your competition, but Davis says it's actually the most persuasive thing you can do because it shows you're putting the seller's interests first.
What I am seeing locally is that sellers are getting savvier about these questions and they deserve real answers, not deflection. When a homeowner in Fremont or anywhere in the East Bay asks about commission, that's not an attack on your professionalism. They're asking the only question they know to ask because they don't yet understand what actually moves the needle on a sale price. That's our job to explain, and we do it best face to face where we can actually build trust and context around what we charge and why.
