What is the fastest way to grow your real estate income? It starts with learning how to list properties in the right places to the right clients. Listings are high-impact tools for attracting buyers, marketing your brand, and generating consistent revenue. When you master the listing process, you’re not just working harder—you’re working smarter.
In The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, Gary Keller explains that becoming a top-producing agent means focusing on sellers. Listings give you more control over your schedule, more visibility in the market, and more opportunities to close deals. Keep reading for a breakdown of Keller’s strategy for listing properties.
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How to List Your Properties
Keller recommends representing sellers rather than buyers, as obtaining property listings—that is, properties for sale—offers the greatest income potential in real estate. This is because property listings are effective marketing opportunities. To list the properties, you can advertise each listing to a wide pool of buyers across various platforms—online, in print media, and on a sign in front of the property, just to name a few. This not only promotes the specific property, but also your services as an agent. This visibility can attract potential buyers and even bring other sellers to you, thus acting as another form of prospect generation.
| Is It Still Profitable to Represent Sellers? Keller’s emphasis on the advantages of representing sellers over buyers has proven prescient in light of recent industry developments. Traditionally, sellers have been obligated to pay a 6% sales commission, which would be split between their agent and the buyer’s agent. However, a 2024 class action settlement against the National Association of Realtors eliminated this tradition. Under the new rules, sellers are no longer obligated to pay commissions to buyers’ agents. This potentially makes seller representation even more financially advantageous, since seller’s agents can negotiate for higher portions of the commission—while still offering sellers lower overall transaction costs by cutting the buyer’s agent out. However, this same development presents a challenge to Keller’s listing-focused approach. Some sellers now see an opportunity to bypass agents entirely, handling their own sales through platforms like Zillow or working directly with attorneys to manage the legal aspects. For them, the commission that would typically go to a seller’s agent represents potential savings they could keep from their home sale. For you to succeed as an agent in this evolving landscape, you must clearly articulate the tangible value you bring to sellers by emphasizing your ability to: Maximize sale prices through strategic pricing, professional staging, and targeted marketing that reaches qualified buyers Navigate complex disclosure requirements that vary by state and municipality. Identify and resolve potential deal-breakers before they derail a sale, from foundation issues to title problems Negotiate effectively with buyers who increasingly have access to market data Manage the coordination of inspections, appraisals, and closing details that can overwhelm sellers By positioning yourself as a valuable partner who delivers measurable financial benefits beyond what sellers could achieve on their own, you can thrive with Keller’s listing-focused approach, even as the commission structure evolves. |
Nail Your Listing Target
Keller emphasizes that you need to focus on generating listings as a primary path to reaching revenue targets. Why? The more properties you have listed, the greater your chances of completing sales and earning commissions. Listings act as the foundation of your business engine, creating multiple revenue opportunities.
Let’s look at how this works in practice: Imagine you’re a residential real estate agent who’s been tracking your activities over the past year. You’ve discovered that for every 50 homeowners you meet with for listing presentations (where you formally present your marketing plan and services to potential sellers), about 10 agree to list their homes with you (20% conversion rate). Of these 10 listings, approximately five result in successful sales (50% listing-to-sale conversion). Each sale brings in an average commission of $15,000.
This means that for every 50 listing presentations you deliver, you generate approximately $75,000 in revenue (5 sales × $15,000 per sale). Now, let’s see how you can use this data to plan your activities for the upcoming quarter. If your target revenue is $300,000, you can work backward to determine exactly what actions you need to take.
- First, determine how many successful sales you need: $300,000 ÷ $15,000 = 20 sales
- Since your listing-to-sale conversion rate is 50%, you’ll need twice as many listings: 20 sales ÷ 0.5 = 40 listings
- With a 20% presentation-to-listing conversion rate, you’ll need: 40 listings ÷ 0.2 = 200 listing presentations
- This means you would need to conduct approximately 200 listing presentations over the quarter to reach your $300,000 target, based on your current conversion rates.
| The Risks of Taking on Too Many Listings While listing as many properties as you can might seem like a good strategy to maximize sales, managing too many property listings at once can have significant drawbacks. One of the main concerns is that your quality of service could deteriorate if you’re spread too thin across multiple properties. This could lead to inadequate marketing efforts for each listing, fewer opportunities for open houses, and slower responses to inquiries from potential buyers. This lack of attention can negatively affect homeowners who are relying on you to sell their properties quickly and at a good price. In fact, some research shows that homes listed by overextended agents tend to sell for less than those managed by agents with fewer active listings. Moreover, taking on too many listings can jeopardize your reputation in the industry. If clients feel neglected or have a less-than-satisfactory experience with you because you’re overstretched, it could result in negative reviews and poor word-of-mouth. |
Learn More About Listing Properties
To understand more about listing properties and reaching your listing target, check out Shortform’s comprehensive guide to The Millionaire Real Estate Agent.
