The highest price isn’t always the best strategy.
I understand why sellers want the highest possible price for their home. You’ve put time, money, work, and memories into your property. Of course you want to get as much as you can.
But there’s a difference between wanting the highest price and pricing your home where the current market is likely to support it.
That distinction can make a very big difference.
I say this during my listing appointments, and I mean it:
I will give you the good, the bad, and the ugly.
I’m not interested in telling you the biggest number just so I can win your listing.
I’d much rather have an uncomfortable conversation about price before we go on the market than have a much harder conversation months later after the market has given us the answer.
Your Home Is Competing for Attention
When your home goes on the market, it isn’t being judged by itself.
Buyers are comparing it with everything else they can afford.
They’re looking at:
- What else is available
- What has recently sold
- What is under contract
- Condition and updates
- Location
- Features
- Photos and presentation
- And, of course, price
Buyers also use search filters.
So if your home is priced outside the range they’re searching, you may never get the opportunity to show them why your home is worth it.
That’s one of the biggest problems with starting too high.
“Let’s Try It High and See What Happens.”
This sounds harmless.
Sometimes it isn’t.
Here’s what can happen:
Your home is priced above what the market data supports.
Buyers look.
Some don’t schedule.
Some look at other homes instead.
A few weeks pass.
The listing sits.
Then comes the first price reduction.
Then another.
And maybe another.
$600,000
↓
$575,000
↓
$550,000
↓
$525,000
At some point, the question may no longer be:
“What’s this home worth?”
It may become:
“Why hasn’t anyone bought it?”
That is a very different conversation.
The Cost of Chasing the Market
One of the biggest misconceptions about pricing is that you can simply start high and reduce later without consequences.
Sometimes you can.
But you may be giving up something valuable in the process:
Attention.
A new listing gets attention because it’s new.
Buyers who are actively searching may see it in their alerts and searches when it first comes on the market.
That initial attention matters.
If the home is overpriced and buyers pass, you don’t necessarily get that same first impression back just because you reduce the price later.
And now the property has a history.
The Internet Has a Long Memory
There’s an important update sellers should know about.
Today, we have more control over how certain listing history is displayed online. At your direction, I can request that price-change history and/or market time be hidden from participating third-party websites that receive MRED listing data. That gives us another tool to help manage how your listing appears to consumers online.
But I also want to be very clear about what that does—and what it doesn’t do.
It does not erase the history from the MLS, and it does not guarantee that information about your home’s previous marketing cannot be found somewhere else. MRED specifically says these settings affect display on third-party public portals and brokerage websites, while the listing data remains intact within the MLS.
Photos, screenshots, previous advertisements, cached information, or information that was distributed elsewhere may still exist outside of the MLS.
So my advice is simple:
We should always think about the long-term story your listing history tells.
You can change the strategy.
You can improve the presentation.
You can reposition the price.
You can make a fresh plan.
But we can’t always make the internet forget that the home was there before.
What About FSBO?
Let’s talk about this honestly too.
Maybe you decide to try selling your home yourself first.
That’s your choice. There is nothing wrong with wanting to see whether you can do it on your own.
But let’s say you advertise your home for:
$500,000
A few weeks later, you decide you’d rather work with an agent.
After looking at the market, the recommended asking price is:
$550,000
Here’s the problem:
A buyer who already saw your home advertised for $500,000 may not automatically think:
“Oh! Now it’s worth $550,000.”
They may remember the earlier price.
That previous price can influence what they think the home is worth and what they’re willing to offer.
The same house can have a very different negotiating environment once buyers have a history with it.
That’s why I want sellers to think carefully about the price they put into the public marketplace in the first place.
What Happens When You Change Agents?
This is another situation I want to talk about before it happens.
Maybe you listed with another agent.
Maybe the home was priced too high.
Maybe you made several price reductions.
Maybe the listing expired or was cancelled.
Then you decide it’s time to try something different.
You absolutely can change your strategy.
But you shouldn’t assume the previous marketing history simply disappears.
A future buyer or buyer’s agent may be able to see that the property was previously marketed.
And if the pattern looks like:
Listed high → reduced → reduced again → expired → relisted → reduced again
buyers may begin asking questions.
Is there something wrong with the home?
Why hasn’t it sold?
How motivated is the seller?
Those questions may have nothing to do with the actual quality of your house.
But buyer perception matters.
Multiple Price Reductions Can Change the Negotiation
This is why I don’t believe that repeated price drops are a strategy.
A price reduction can absolutely be the right thing to do.
Sometimes the market gives us new information.
Sometimes conditions change.
Sometimes the original price simply wasn’t supported.
That is different from repeatedly dropping the price because we started too high and are chasing buyers instead of positioning the home correctly from the beginning.
The goal isn’t:
“Let’s see how high we can start.”
The goal is:
“Let’s determine where the market gives us the best opportunity to sell.”
What I Look At Before We Price Your Home
I don’t pull a number out of thin air.
We’ll look at the data that actually matters, including:
Recent comparable sales
Current competition
Pending sales
Your home’s condition and improvements
Location and neighborhood factors
What buyers are actually seeing when they compare homes
Current market conditions
Then I’ll explain what I see.
You decide the asking price.
But you will know exactly what I think and why.
My Promise to You
I don’t want to win your listing by telling you the highest number.
I want to help you make an informed decision.
Because there is a big difference between:
“I think we can get $600,000.”
and
“Here’s what the evidence says the market is likely to support, here’s what could happen if we price above it, and here’s the strategy I’d recommend.”
I’d rather have that honest conversation before we list than tell you what you want to hear and have us standing here three months later wondering why the house hasn’t sold.
Your home deserves a strategy—not a guess.
Already Started Down This Road?
Maybe you’re already listed.
Maybe you’ve had price reductions.
Maybe you’ve cancelled or expired.
Maybe you tried FSBO.
Maybe another agent gave you a price that hasn’t worked.
That doesn’t mean it’s hopeless.
It means we need to look at what happened and figure out what needs to change.
We can’t change the history.
But we can change the strategy.
Let’s talk about your home.
No pressure. No sales pitch. Just straight answers.