The starting point is usually a budget set through a mortgage pre-approval, which turns a vague search into one bounded by a real number. From there, Joel uses early showings to figure out what a buyer is actually responding to, which is often different from what they first described.
That process matters more in a market with 1.63 months of supply, where a buyer who takes too long to define what they want risks losing a well-priced home to someone who moved faster.
Buyers who are unsure are not a problem to work around, they are the normal starting point for most searches.
Get your hand-reviewed valuation from Joel Dyck.