The Listing Playbook

How to Use This Playbook

This is a reference, not a script to read aloud. Nobody wins a listing by reciting a document. You win by walking in prepared enough that you can put the document down.

The Three Acts

• Phases 1–9 — Winning the listing. First call through signed agreement.
• Phases 10–15 — Running the listing. Prep, launch, on-market management, and the reduction conversation.
• Phases 16–18 — Closing it. Offers, under contract, closing and after.

Core and Conditional

Several sections split into Core and Conditional. Core is what you do on every listing, every time. Conditional is what you add when the situation calls for it. If you are new, run Core cleanly before you reach for anything else — a tight Core appointment beats an overloaded one.

Time Anchors

Every phase carries an estimated time. These are targets, not limits. They exist so newer agents know whether they are running long, and so nobody schedules a listing appointment with forty-five minutes on the clock.

Purpose & The Seller Perception Goal

This playbook helps Jade agents guide a seller from the first conversation through closing and post-closing follow-up. It is meant to be used from the very first seller call all the way through the end of the listing relationship — not just as an appointment deck.

By the End, the Seller Should Feel

• Understood
• Prepared
• Confident in the pricing strategy
• Clear on the process
• Impressed by the marketing plan
• Protected through negotiation and closing

The Core Seller Perception Goal

The seller should feel that Jade is not just going to put the home online. Jade is going to guide the sale, protect their equity, and manage the process from the first conversation through closing.

First Contact & First Call

Target: 20–30 minutes. Goal: an appointment on the calendar and a questionnaire in their inbox.

Goals of the First Call

• Build trust
• Understand motivation
• Learn the timeline
• Identify decision-makers
• Set the listing appointment
• Send the Jade Seller Questionnaire
• Gather context

Opening the Call

The Question You Will Get Anyway

Most sellers ask what the home is worth in the first three minutes. Do not guess, and do not dodge. Guessing anchors you to a number you have not earned; dodging reads as evasive. Name a range, name the reason it is a range, and turn it into the appointment.

Motivation & Timeline Questions

• What has you thinking about selling now?
• Where are you hoping to go next?
• Is there a timeline?
• Do you need to buy as well?
• Is there a number that would make the move worth it?
• What concerns do you have?

Property Questions

• How long have you owned the home?
• What updates have you made?
• Any known issues?
• Is there an HOA?
• Solar, lease, lien, or tenant?
• Approximate mortgage payoff?
• Any exclusions?

Decision-Process Questions

• Who else is involved in the decision?
• Have you spoken with other agents?
• What do you want to see before hiring someone?
• Have you sold before?
• Anything you disliked in a previous experience?

Setting the Appointment

Book while you are on the phone. Offer two specific times rather than asking what works — "Would Thursday evening or Saturday morning be better?" And ask directly whether everyone involved in the decision can be there. An appointment with one of two decision-makers is a second appointment you have not scheduled yet.

Signals Worth Catching on the First Call

• Interviewing several agents — you are in a competition. Prep accordingly and ask what they want to see.
• A number in mind well above the market — start seeding the pricing conversation now, not at the table.
• Must sell and must buy — the timeline is the whole conversation. Bring the sequencing plan.
• A bad prior experience — ask what went wrong. Whatever they name is what you must visibly do differently.
• Vague timeline, no motivation — this is a nurture lead. Set the appointment anyway, but tag it honestly.

Pre-Listing Prep

Target: 2–3 hours. This is where the listing is actually won. The appointment is just where it gets confirmed.

Before the appointment, you should know the seller's motivation, timeline, communication preference, property details, likely price range, local competition, estimated seller net, potential objections, prep needs, and marketing angle.

The Jade Seller Questionnaire — Official Intake Step

Every seller should receive the Jade Seller Questionnaire before the listing meeting whenever possible. The questionnaire is not admin work — it should guide the entire appointment.

Use the Responses to Customize

• The CMA
• The HouseCanary valuation review
• The seller net sheet
• Prep recommendations
• The marketing plan
• The timeline
• Conversation style

HouseCanary Valuation

Use HouseCanary as a starting point, not the final pricing answer. Pull:

• Estimated value
• Value range
• Comparable sales
• Property characteristics
• Neighborhood trends
• Market movement
• Estimated equity position, if useful
• Rental estimate, if relevant
• Market confidence indicators, if available

CMA Framework

Seller Net Sheet — Three Scenarios

Build the net sheet around the same three prices you will use in the pricing conversation: Momentum, Market, and Stretch. Use these names here and everywhere else. The net sheet feeds directly into Phase 6, and a seller who hears two different vocabularies for the same three numbers stops trusting both.

Each scenario should include:

• Sale price
• Mortgage payoff
• Closing costs
• Commission
• Buyer-side compensation or concession strategy
• Seller concessions
• HOA fees
• Repairs / prep
• Estimated net proceeds

Build all three before you arrive. The moment a seller sees that the Stretch price nets them less than the Market price after two months of carrying costs and a reduction, the pricing argument is largely over — and you did not have to make it.

Pre-Appointment Checklist

• Send Jade Seller Questionnaire
• Review all seller responses
• Pull HouseCanary valuation
• Build CMA around the seller's property details
• Prepare seller net sheet — all three scenarios
• Note communication preference
• Note timeline and motivation
• Identify possible concerns before the appointment
• Customize the marketing / prep strategy based on the answers
• Confirm current compensation and disclosure requirements with your broker
• Drive the neighborhood and preview the active competition if you can

What to Bring to the Listing Meeting

A briefcase is not a plan. Bring six things you will actually open, and add from the conditional list only when the seller's situation calls for it.

The Core Six — Every Listing, Every Time

Conditional — Bring When

Always in the bag: business cards · notebook or listing worksheet · pen · laptop or tablet · charger.

Documents to Have Ready

Ready means accessible — printed or on the tablet — not necessarily on the table. Confirm the current required set with your broker before every appointment.

• Exclusive Right to Sell Listing Contract
• Seller's Property Disclosure
• Square Footage Disclosure
• Lead-Based Paint Disclosure (if built before 1978)
• Source of Water information
• HOA documents
• Inclusions / exclusions list
• Solar agreement
• Tenant / lease documents
• Short sale addendum, if applicable

Jade Edge Materials

These are the leave-behinds that outlive the appointment. Bring two or three matched to the seller — not all six.

Listing Appointment Flow

Target: 60–90 minutes. If you are past 90 and still presenting, you stopped listening somewhere around minute 40.

Recommended Order and Timing

Notice that the first thirty minutes are almost entirely listening. That is deliberate. The seller decides whether they trust you long before you get to the marketing plan.

Opening

Walkthrough Questions

• What do you love most about this home?
• What updates have you made?
• What should buyers notice?
• What rooms do people comment on?
• Anything needing attention?
• Exclusions?
• Showing concerns?
• Pets, kids, tenants, schedule issues?

Things to Look For

Take notes visibly. A seller watching you write down what they said about the kitchen renovation is a seller being convinced that you listened. Then use their exact words back to them in the recap email.

Transition Line

The Listing Presentation Deck

The Core Ten

These carry the argument. Each one has exactly one job.

The Conditional Fourteen

Frameworks to Anchor the Deck

• Price, prep, and presentation are the three levers.
• The first showing often happens on a screen.
• The first 7 days matter.
• The strongest offer is not always the highest headline price.

Pricing Conversation Framework

Target: 15 minutes. You are not selling a number. You are selling a decision the seller gets to make with real information.

The Three Pricing Paths

These three names — Momentum, Market, Stretch — are the only pricing vocabulary Jade uses. They appear on the net sheet, in the deck, in the recap email, and in the reduction conversation. One set of words, start to finish.

Agree the Review Points Before You List

This is the most important sentence in the phase: the price reduction conversation is won at the listing appointment, not on day 21. If you pre-agree the checkpoints while everyone is optimistic, a reduction later is a plan being followed. If you do not, it is a failure being admitted. Same action, completely different conversation.

Review points: 7 days · 14 days · 21 days. Put them in the recap email. Put them in the calendar.

Reading the Market Through Price

Price is the loudest signal a listing sends, and the market answers back within days. The full diagnostic — what each signal means and what to do about it — lives in Phase 14, On-Market Management. Use that version. What matters here, at the table, is the principle:

Compensation & Concession Conversation

Target: 10 minutes. Lead this conversation. If the seller raises it first, you are already reacting.

Separate the Three Numbers

Sellers blend three completely different things into one word — "commission" — and then negotiate against the blend. Your first job is to pull them apart. They are separate decisions, they live in separate documents, and they behave differently.

The Buyer-Side Decision

There is no default answer here and you should not present one as if there were. Model the options against the net sheet and let the seller choose with real numbers in front of them.

"Why Would I Pay the Buyer's Agent?"

"What If We Offer Nothing?"

How We Protect Your Net

This is the reframe the whole phase is built toward. The fee is one line. The net is the number that reaches their account, and you touch it at six points:

• Pricing — getting the launch price right is worth more than any fee negotiation.
• Prep — the right two thousand dollars, not the wrong ten thousand.
• Marketing — competition is what moves price, and competition is manufactured.
• Negotiation — offer terms, not just headline price.
• Inspection — where deals quietly leak five figures.
• Appraisal — defending the number you already agreed to.

Document the Decision

• Compensation decision confirmed in writing, in the correct document
• Advertising and MLS display handled per current policy — confirm, do not assume
• Decision reflected in all three net sheet scenarios
• Revisit trigger set — if no offers by day 21, this decision comes back to the table

Seller Objections

An objection is not resistance. It is the seller telling you what they need answered before they can say yes.

The Method

Every script below runs the same four beats. Learn the beats and you can handle objections that are not on this list.

"Another agent said they can list it higher."

"Can we just try a high price?"

"We do not want to do repairs."

"We do not want open houses."

"Can you reduce your commission?"

"We have a friend who is an agent."

"We might sell by owner."

After the Appointment

Same day. Not tomorrow. The recap email is where a good appointment becomes a signed listing.

Same-Day Follow-Up

Send a recap the same day summarizing the pricing strategy, prep plan, and next steps. Use their words — the ones you wrote down during the walkthrough. A recap that quotes the seller back to themselves is the proof that you listened, delivered in writing, where the other decision-maker who was not in the room can read it.

Subject line ideas: Your Home Sale Strategy · Recap + Next Steps for [Address] · Listing Strategy for [Address]

What the Recap Must Contain

• Their goals, in their language
• The three prices — Momentum, Market, Stretch — with net at each
• Your recommendation, stated plainly
• The prep plan and what it costs
• The agreed review points: day 7, day 14, day 21
• The compensation decision as discussed
• One clear next step with a date on it

Follow-Up Cadence

If They Went Quiet

Silence after a listing appointment usually means an unresolved objection you never heard — not a decision against you.

Do not send "just checking in." Send something with a reason to exist: a new comparable sale, a competing listing that just launched, a change in the data you showed them.

Then ask the question directly: "When we met, was there anything I didn't give you a good enough answer on?" You cannot fix an objection nobody said out loud.

Once the Listing Is Signed

Target: everything below started within 48 hours of signature.

Immediate Next Steps

• Confirm listing agreement details
• Confirm compensation strategy — in writing, in the correct document
• Confirm launch date
• Send disclosures
• Schedule prep / staging
• Schedule photography / media
• Order sign
• Gather HOA documents
• Gather utility / service info
• Gather repair receipts
• Confirm inclusions / exclusions
• Confirm showing instructions
• Confirm lockbox
• Confirm pet / tenant / access logistics
• Calendar the day 7, 14, and 21 review points now, while you remember why they exist

Listing Prep Checklists

The goal is not a perfect home. It is the highest return per dollar and per day.

The Prep Checklists

What to Fix — and What to Leave Alone

Sellers ask this at every appointment and the honest answer builds more trust than the ambitious one. Three buckets:

The small stuff matters more than it should. A dripping faucet and a sticking door do not cost a buyer anything to fix. What they do is tell a story: this home has been neglected, so what else has been? That story gets priced into the offer at far more than the cost of the washer.

Pre-Listing Inspection — the Honest Trade

Sellers will ask. Do not answer reflexively, and confirm the disclosure implications with your broker before you recommend it.

The rule: if you inspect, you disclose. That is not a reason to skip it — for an older home with likely findings, a seller who wants certainty is often well served by knowing first. It is a reason to make the decision deliberately, with the seller, in writing, and with your broker's current guidance in hand.

Coming Soon & the Pre-Launch Window

The most compliance-sensitive week of the listing. Slow down here.

What This Window Is For

The pre-launch window exists so the home is ready — not so the listing gets a head start. That distinction is the whole phase. Prep, photography, copy, and staging happen here. This is the difference between launching a listing and merely publishing one.

Do not trade the first seven days for a few days of early buzz. The first week on market is the most valuable attention the home will ever receive. Spending it while photos are unfinished or the kitchen is still cluttered is the most expensive unforced error in the entire playbook — and it is unrecoverable. There is no second launch.

The Seller Conversation

Pre-Launch Checklist

• Confirm current pre-marketing rules with your broker — before anything is shown, posted, or discussed
• If any pre-market exposure is being considered, confirm the required seller consent and get it in writing first
• Confirm the seller understands the trade-off in writing — not just verbally
• Prep and staging complete before the photographer arrives — not the same day
• Photography, video, and floor plan scheduled with buffer for a reshoot
• MLS copy drafted and reviewed — see the fair housing note in Phase 13
• Launch date confirmed and defended — do not launch early into an unfinished listing
• Seller contacted at least twice during the quiet stretch

Launch Plan

You get one first week. Everything in Phases 11 and 12 existed to make this week count.

Pre-Launch

• Finalize price
• Approve MLS copy — fair housing reviewed
• Approve photos
• Confirm showings
• Confirm compensation / concession strategy
• Install sign / lockbox
• Schedule open house
• Build social content
• Prepare email blast
• Notify relevant agents / buyers

Launch Day

• Listing live
• Check syndication — actually look at the portals, do not assume
• Share with seller
• Post on social
• Send email blast
• Contact targeted agents
• Confirm access
• Monitor activity

First Weekend

• Open house
• Collect feedback
• Track showing volume
• Track saves / views
• Watch competition
• Send seller recap

On-Market Management

Send a weekly seller update covering showings, feedback, online activity, competition, and any recommended adjustments.

Reading the Market

This is the full diagnostic. Every signal has a most-likely meaning and a specific lever. Use this version — Phase 6 points here on purpose.

Benchmarks — Build Your Own Baseline

"Track showing volume" means nothing without a comparison. Ten showings is excellent or alarming depending entirely on the price band and the month. Before launch, pull the last 90 days of comparable listings in the same band and note three numbers:

• Median days to first showing.
• Median showings before an accepted offer.
• Median days on market for the ones that sold — and for the ones that expired.

Those three numbers are your baseline, and they are far more useful than any national figure. Share them with the seller at launch. A seller who knows what normal looks like reads week two accurately instead of anxiously.

The Weekly Seller Update

Same day each week, whether or not there is news. Silence is what sellers remember when they leave an agent.

• Showings this week, and running total against the baseline
• Feedback — verbatim, including the parts that sting
• Online activity: views, saves, trend direction
• What the competition did — new listings, price changes, what went under contract
• Your read on the data, stated plainly
• Your recommendation, or an explicit "hold, and here is why"
• What happens next and when they will hear from you

The Price Reduction Conversation

The hardest conversation in the listing relationship, and the one most often avoided until it is too late to help.

The Decision Points

How to Size a Reduction

This is where most reductions are wasted. A reduction has exactly one job: put the home in front of buyers who have never seen it. A cut that does not reach a new audience is not a strategy — it is an apology.

• Cross a search bracket. Buyers search in round numbers and standard increments. A reduction that does not cross one of those thresholds is invisible to everyone who has not already seen the home — which is precisely the audience you need.
• One meaningful move beats three small ones. Three small cuts teach the market that a fourth is coming. Everyone stops and waits. You have taught your own buyers to bid against you.
• Move while you still have momentum. A reduction at day 14 reads as responsive. The identical number at day 45 reads as desperate, and buyers price it that way.
• Never reduce twice in a fortnight. If the first one was right-sized, it does not need a follow-up. If it needed one, it was not right-sized.

The Conversation

When the Answer Is Not Price

Sometimes the data points elsewhere. Do not reduce reflexively — a reduction is the one lever you cannot pull back.

One caution. "Let's try new photos first" is the most common way agents avoid the price conversation for another three weeks. If the diagnostic genuinely points at presentation, fix presentation. If it points at price and you reach for photography instead, you have not helped your seller — you have just made the eventual reduction bigger.

Offer Review

The strongest offer is the one that gives you the best mix of price, certainty, timing, and clean terms.

Three Tiers, In Order

Sixteen comparison points with no weighting is a list, not a framework. Sort them into three tiers and read them in order — because a headline price you cannot close is worth exactly nothing.

Read them in that order, but weight tier 2 hardest. Economics tells you what an offer is worth. Certainty tells you whether it is real. Logistics tells you whether it fits. The highest offer with a thin pre-approval, a stretched appraisal gap, and no earnest money is not the highest offer — it is the most expensive way to lose thirty days and relaunch as a home that "fell out."

The Seller Conversation

Multiple Offers

• Decide the process before you announce it, and tell every agent the same thing.
• Handle it exactly as current brokerage and MLS policy requires — confirm, do not improvise.
• A deadline creates competition. A vague "we'll see what comes in" bleeds it away.
• The best-terms offer and the highest offer are frequently different offers. Your job is to make sure the seller sees both clearly and chooses knowingly.

Under Contract

Send an under-contract seller update after each major milestone so the seller always knows where the transaction stands.

Closing & Post-Closing

Closing Week Checklist

• Closing time / location
• Wire safety reminders — verbally, by phone, to a number you already had
• Move-out
• Utilities
• Keys / remotes / fobs
• Cleaning expectations
• Repair receipts
• Final walkthrough
• Proceeds delivery

Post-Closing

• Thank-you card
• Closing gift
• Review request
• Referral ask
• Market update offer
• Stay-in-touch plan

Ask for the review within a week. Gratitude has a half-life. The seller who would have written you a paragraph on Friday will write you a sentence a month later, and nothing at all by spring.

Follow Up Boss (FUB) Setup

The playbook only works if the system remembers what you promised.

Recommended Stages

Recommended Tags

Recommended Tasks

The Closing Framework

You have earned the right to ask. Ask.

Soft Close

Direct Close

If They Need to Think

If There Are Multiple Decision-Makers

The agent who fills that silence with one more feature has just told the seller they are not confident in the plan they spent ninety minutes building.

What Wins the Listing

The best listing presentation is not the prettiest deck. It is the clearest plan.

Jade Agents Win By Being

• Prepared
• Local
• Honest
• Calm
• Specific
• Strategic
• Strong communicators
• Skilled negotiators
• Clear on next steps

The Whole Thing, In One Paragraph

What Changed in This Edition

For anyone who knows the first edition — here is what moved and why.

New Sections

Fixes

• One pricing vocabulary. The net sheet said Conservative / Strategic / Stretch; the pricing conversation said Momentum / Market / Stretch. Same three numbers, two languages, and the mismatch landed exactly where the two sections meet. Now Momentum / Market / Stretch everywhere.
• Reading the market lives in one place. It appeared in both Phase 6 and Phase 12 with different logic. The fuller version won; Phase 6 now points to Phase 14 rather than restating a simpler version.
• All seven objections are scripted. The first edition named seven and scripted one — leaving the freeze moments unwritten. The commission response was the model for the other six.
• Core and conditional. Twenty-one materials and a 24-slide deck contradicted the document's own thesis. Both now split into what you always do and what you add when the situation calls for it.
• Time anchors throughout. Newer agents had no way to know whether they were running long.
• Benchmarks you build yourself. "Track showing volume" against nothing is decoration. Phase 14 now teaches a baseline.
• The offer list became a framework. Sixteen unweighted comparison points are now three tiers, read in order.

Additions Inside Existing Phases

• What not to fix, and the honest pre-inspection trade (Phase 11).
• Fair housing standards for MLS copy and all marketing (Phase 13).
• Wire fraud script (Phase 18).
• The "what's my home worth" script for the first call (Phase 1).
• Pre-framing the review points at the appointment — the step that makes Phase 15 survivable (Phase 6).
• A compliance note at the front, and rules-agnostic framing throughout, so the playbook stays accurate as rules change.