What do I say when a real estate agent says my price is too high?

"Expensive next to what?" Then point at the 3% price cut on the house, which costs her seller thousands and shrinks her commission. Say it once and stop talking.

How do I know if an agent is worth working with?

Count her listings in the last year. Under ten, she is not who you are building for. Ten-plus, she is worth the conversation.

How do I know if my real estate photography prices are too cheap?

If no agent has ever said "that's a bit high," you are under-market. Pushback is what a price near the top of the market sounds like.

Answers › Pricing & packages

Ask the agent

An agent says I’m too expensive. Am I?

Google Ads sends me agents who just want the photos. Cheap one-off agents looking for a deal, yapping about $140. Am I too expensive, or are they too cheap?Asked by a photographer on Abidur Rahman, Riverside County, California

Count her listings before you count your price. "Too expensive" tells you who she is before it tells you what you are worth. Chase the $140 crowd and your ad money and your Saturdays go to agents who list two homes a year.

Count her listings before you count your price

Google Ads does not know the difference. It sends you everyone who typed "real estate photographer," and most of them list two homes a year and want the photos for $140. That is not a pricing problem. It is a sorting problem.

Before you touch your sheet, look her up. Under ten listings in the last year and she is not who you are building for. Ten-plus and she is worth the conversation. The bigger the fish, the better.

Agents see marketing as risk: what if I don’t sell the house? The $140 agent has already decided she won’t. The ten-listing agent has decided she will. They are not asking the same question.

When the ones saying "expensive" list two homes a year, they are telling you who they are, not what you are worth.

Never defend the number. Reframe it.

Now the real one. Ten-plus listings, and she still says it is expensive. This is where most people lose her, because they start explaining their costs.

Say it back: "Expensive next to what?" A 3% price cut on the home is thousands out of her seller’s pocket, and her commission drops with it. The shoot is a fraction of that. You are not defending your rate. You are putting it next to the only number she actually cares about, and it disappears.

I said that number out loud at kitchen tables for ten years. It is the one she dreads. Say it once, then stop talking. The silence after is hers to fill, and she fills it with the number she just heard.

Expensive next to what? A 3% price cut costs her seller thousands.

Know your average ticket, and build what $140 can’t buy

The number that decides whether you are too expensive is not hers. It is yours. Abidur’s average ticket is $400 to $450. Mine has to average over $500 to make sense.

You do not get there arguing with the $140 crowd. You get there with what $140 cannot buy: video, the marketing kit, ten hours of VA time at delivery.

The $140 agent cannot buy any of that from you because she does not want it. The ten-listing agent wants all of it, and the average ticket climbs without you ever raising a photo price.

And the one sign you really are too cheap: nobody ever says "that’s a bit high." If you have never heard it, you are under-market.

The line

Expensive next to what?

The big lesson

"Too expensive" from a two-listing agent isn’t a verdict on your price. It’s a description of her business.

Do this

This week: pull your last 20 inquiries, mark everyone under ten listings, and stop chasing that column.

The three-package sheet I send agents

Put your numbers in it before your next booking. Free. Then take the sixty-second roadmap quiz and I tell you what to fix first.

Get the sheet Get my roadmap

Straight answers

What do I say when a real estate agent says my price is too high?: "Expensive next to what?" Then point at the 3% price cut on the house, which costs her seller thousands and shrinks her commission. Say it once and stop talking.
How do I know if an agent is worth working with?: Count her listings in the last year. Under ten, she is not who you are building for. Ten-plus, she is worth the conversation.
How do I know if my real estate photography prices are too cheap?: If no agent has ever said "that’s a bit high," you are under-market. Pushback is what a price near the top of the market sounds like.