Like auto mechanics, real estate agents have a box of tools they use regularly, and some they only dig out once in a while. The market these days is proving to be one where every tool is needed, and the best agents are using new tools and finding creative ways to get properties sold.

This is the most challenging real estate market seen since 2007. Homes are sitting for long periods before they sell, and every home sells for less than expected. Buyers are exacting their revenge for the wacky pandemic days when sellers demanded everything. Now buyers treat sellers like they are a 250-pound boxer in the ring with a 95-pound freshman. It’s not pretty.

Even so, homes are selling. The ones that sell use every tool available, and the sellers do everything they can to make their homes shine like jewels. Gone are the days of cell phone pictures, no staging, no landscaping, and multiple offers. Those days were so long ago they may as well have been in black and white.

Now, pictures must be magazine-quality. Staging must highlight each aspect of the home and add color and character where needed. Landscaping must look like the sellers have a master gardener on staff, and the home should be so clean that even Howie Mandel would eat off the floors (look it up).

Agents must be creative in their social media posts and ads. You can’t do a short video saying, “Welcome to 123 Main Street…” The viewer will have tapped past that faster than a toddler headed for an open door. Now, agents need to talk about lifestyle, neighborhoods, and community.

Buyers have never been pickier or had more choices of homes. Then, once they settle on a house, they are bombarded with negative news, negative family comments, and negative mortgage interest rates. Buyers are swimming upstream constantly, and sellers need to remove every obstacle in the way of a sale.

Now is the time for sellers to get serious about what needs to happen to sell a home, and agents need to be creative in everything from presentation, pricing, promotion, and prospecting. Cutting corners is a sure way to not get a home sold.

Professional agents are still having success because they know what needs to happen to get a property sold, and they aren’t bashful about offering their suggestions to their clients. Now is not the time to be coy. It’s time to get real.