A listing goes live on Thursday. By Sunday, there’s an offer on the table. That should feel like good news, and yet the seller reads the number, turns red, refuses to counter and goes out on his boat to cool off. When he comes back, he still won’t respond.
An agent brought me that exact situation on a recent coaching call. She asked what she could have said differently. My answer surprised her, because most of the work happens before the offer is ever read out loud.
Here’s something I’ve watched for four decades: When a seller receives an insulting offer, a small part of them blames the agent for it. Sometimes they say it out loud. More often, it sits underneath the conversation.
In their mind, you went out into the world, and this is what you brought home. The low number becomes a reflection on you, your marketing and your pricing advice.
If you don’t address that before you present, you’re walking into the room holding something your seller is already primed to resent.
Set the stage before you say the number
Think of it like a weather forecast. If the forecaster tells you a storm is coming and you get a light drizzle, you feel relieved. If the forecaster promised sunshine and the drizzle shows up, you feel cheated.
The weather was identical. The expectation changed everything.
So, before I ever reveal the figure, I say something like this:
“John, we just went on the market, and we already have an offer. Before I show it to you, I want to tell you what it means. Sometimes an offer tells us something about price or about the market. This one tells us nothing. It has nothing to do with your house, the price we chose or the marketing we just started.
“By law, I have to present every offer to you, so I’m going to. I just don’t want you to read anything into this number. Please don’t shoot the messenger. Are you with me?”
Notice what happens next. After that setup, your seller is bracing for something terrible. When the real number lands, it’s usually better than what he imagined. My client’s listing was priced at $575,000. The buyer offered $570,000. The seller was likely expecting something closer to $500,000. Hearing $570,000 after that kind of framing produces a very different reaction than hearing it cold.
Translate the lowball offer into one honest number
Now for the rest of the story. That $570,000 offer also asked the seller to cover roughly $20,000 in closing costs plus the buyer’s agent fee, for about $35,000 in all. That’s what made the seller angry, and it’s understandable.
But anger makes math harder, so simplify it for him. Take $570,000, subtract the $35,000 in concessions, and you’re really looking at about $535,000 on a $575,000 list price. Now there’s one number on the table instead of a tangle of line items. One number is something a person can respond to calmly.
Then ask the question that reconnects him to his own goal:
“When we listed at $575,000, what number were we hoping to walk away with? Good. Then let’s respond to this as if it were $535,000 and see how close we can bring them.”
Keep him in the game
The hardest part is the seller who says he won’t play the game. I understand that feeling, but here’s how I’d answer it:
“I agree, this buyer may not be serious. But if we don’t play the game, we can’t win the game. Think of this like football practice. It’s not the championship, but we still show up and run the plays. Let’s practice on this one.”
Here’s what I want every agent to remember about an offer that looks unserious: somebody still got in a car, toured homes with a real estate professional, sat down afterward, filled out the paperwork and committed money to it. That’s not nothing. There’s an element of seriousness in simply going through that process.
So I’d say:
“Let’s not kill off a possibility. As long as we end up at a number that works for you, what do we lose by sending back a counter?”
The sequence I teach for presenting a lowball offer
- Frame before you reveal. Tell the seller what the offer does and doesn’t mean before you say the number. You protect your relationship and lower the emotional temperature at the same time.
- Separate yourself from the number. Remind the seller that you’re required to present every offer and that this one isn’t a verdict on the house or the marketing. You’re the messenger, not the author.
- Convert it to a net figure. Strip away the concessions and talk about a single net number. A simple figure invites a reasoned response.
- Return to the target. Remind the seller of the figure you were both aiming for on listing day. Now you’re discussing a gap, not an insult.
- Counter instead of walking away. Use an analogy like practice before the game. Sending a counter is free, and it holds a genuine buyer at the table.
A low offer insults the seller only when it arrives unframed. Prepare the expectation first, and the same number becomes something to negotiate instead of something to resent.
None of this is about manipulating anyone. It’s about doing your job as an advisor. Your seller hired you to keep a clear head when theirs gets hot. That’s the real value you bring to the table, more than any form or lockbox ever could.
The next time a lowball offer lands, don’t rush to read it aloud. Slow down, set the stage, and then let the number speak for itself. You’ll be surprised how often a seller who swore he’d never respond ends up sending a counter by dinner.
An agent who reads the number first ends up defending it. An agent who frames it first ends up negotiating it. Serve, don’t sell. Coach, don’t close.
Darryl Davis is the CEO of Darryl Davis Seminars. Get connected on Facebook or YouTube.
