What is a sealed agent proposal?
A sealed proposal is a written offer to represent your listing that other competing agents cannot see. It states the agent’s commission rate, marketing plan, included services like staging or photography, comparable sales, and a projected sale price — so up to ten agents put their sharpest terms in writing instead of quoting the “standard” rate.
Reviewed · Reviewed by Kristian Peter, CA DRE #01308663
Sealed means two things at once. Competing agents cannot see each other’s terms, so nobody anchors to a rival’s number or waits to undercut it by a tenth of a point. And the homeowner cannot be reached, so the proposal has to stand on its own page — there is no phone call in which to explain it.
A useful proposal carries five things in writing: the listing fee, the projected sale price, the comparable sales that justify it, the marketing plan for this specific home, and what is included — photography, staging, open houses, video. A proposal missing any of those is asking to be trusted rather than judged.
Once a proposal is shortlisted, won, or declined it is locked as the homeowner read it. An agent cannot revise terms after seeing how the room reacted, which is the whole reason to seal them.