Offers & negotiation
How Lisa manages inspection requests on her listings, so sellers do not get bullied into repairs they could skip.
Most sellers experience the showing phase as passive — you leave the house, buyers come in, your agent calls a few days later with vague reassurances. We run it differently. Every showing is an active data point, and we treat it that way from the moment the appointment is confirmed to the debrief conversation with the buyer's agent afterward.
In a well-priced, well-prepared listing, the feedback phase is short — it leads quickly to offers. In a listing that needs adjustment, the feedback phase is where you catch the problem before it becomes 60 days on market and a market adjustment that signals trouble to every buyer watching. The difference between those two outcomes is how seriously your agent listens to what the market is saying.
We listen carefully. We report honestly. And we act on what we hear before a small pattern becomes a large problem.
Presence on the market is not the same as working the market. Here's what active management actually looks like.
Buyer feedback is rarely straightforward. We've learned to read between the lines.
This is the most common piece of feedback — and the most misread. "Still looking" can mean the buyer genuinely has three more showings this weekend. It can also mean the home is in the back half of their list, and they'll return if nothing better surfaces. Or it can mean the price is a problem they don't want to say out loud.
We ask follow-up questions that give us a clearer read — and we track whether the buyer continues to show up at comparable homes in the market, which tells us where your listing actually sits in their mind.
This is direct feedback, and it deserves a direct response. The first question is whether the buyers who say this are your buyers — or whether they're in the wrong price band entirely. The second question is whether the feedback is isolated or consistent across multiple showings. One buyer's price objection might be noise. Four buyers' price objections in two weeks are data.
We bring this conversation to you with our recommendation for what to do about it — and we do it before the momentum from the launch week is gone.
High showing volume with no offers is a specific diagnosis: buyers are interested enough to visit but not convinced enough to commit. In the Massachusetts and southern NH markets, this typically points to one of three things — price, condition, or a specific objection (location, lot, layout) that wasn't apparent in the photos. We identify which it is and address it specifically, rather than waiting and hoping the next week is different.
This is exactly the kind of pattern that responds to early, calibrated adjustment. A small correction in week two often preserves far more equity than a larger correction in week five.
If your listing is active and the feedback isn't making sense to you — or if you're thinking about selling and want to understand what the showing process actually looks like — we're ready to talk it through.
— Lisa Sevajian
lisa.sevajian@exprealty.com · 978-457-3406
Top 1.5% of over 1,400,000 Realtors · Brokered by eXp Realty
Through every sale there are small negotiations, and there are huge negotiations. This one falls somewhere in the middle. Each one matters if your equity is on the line.
In Massachusetts, home sellers are being bullied into making repairs they probably could skip if they had a plan. Buyers can no longer waive their home inspection in their offer to win, so some are using inspection reports like a repair list that the sellers should be happy to get started on.
The time to think about what you are going to say in a difficult conversation is before you have to have the difficult conversation. Practicing on clients means risking their money. I do not do that.
Part of the LSG selling strategy is having a plan for when a hiccup happens, because a hiccup will happen. When the inspection response comes back with a long list, we already know which items are real, which are cosmetic, and which are the buyer testing to see if you will flinch. That is how you protect your equity at the negotiation table.
Want a plan for protecting your equity on your sale?
Book a 15-minute call with Lisa