In most agencies, average time to sell isn’t decided in the final negotiation. It’s decided in the first three weeks of the listing, when no one is quite sure who’s supposed to follow up with whom.
The real culprit: diffused responsibility
A listing that drags on is almost never held up by the market. It’s held up because the photo hasn’t been uploaded yet, the valuation is waiting on approval, or no one has called back the buyer who was interested after Tuesday’s viewing. Every task exists, but it doesn’t clearly belong to anyone.
We stopped trying to figure out who had done what. Now every property has a thread, and the thread always says what’s left to do.
Three levers that actually make a difference
A single status per property, visible to the whole team, not just the agent in charge
Automatic follow-ups as soon as a reasonable delay is exceeded, with no email to write
A report sent to the seller every week, even when there’s nothing dramatic to announce
What this actually changes
Agencies that apply these three principles rarely see their average time to sell cut in half overnight. But they stop losing weeks on listings that had no reason to drag on. That’s where the real room for improvement lies, and it’s worth a look at our plans.
