Pricing strategy
The number is a conclusion, not an opinion
A list price should be the output of an analysis you can read and challenge. Here are the six inputs that produce it, and what happens when any one of them is ignored.
Inputs
What goes into the price
Closed comparables
Verified FMLS and GAMLS closings within the last 90–180 days, adjusted for square footage, terrace-level finish, lot position and condition.
Active competition
What a buyer can see instead of your home this weekend. Your price is judged against the alternatives, not against last year.
Pending contracts
The leading indicator. Pendings show where the market is clearing right now, before those closings appear in the data.
Absorption rate
Months of inventory in your price band tells you whether you have pricing power or need to buy attention.
Search-band psychology
Buyers search in round brackets. Listing at $1,010,000 hides your home from every buyer whose filter stops at $1,000,000.
Appraisal risk
A price that no appraiser can support turns a strong offer into a renegotiation four weeks later.
The cost of testing a high price
Sellers are often told they can "start high and come down." The data does not support it. A listing receives the majority of its qualified attention in the first fourteen days, when it is new to every saved search in the market. Spend those days above the market and you re-enter the field later as a stale listing competing on price alone.
Price reductions also carry a signal. Two reductions in six weeks tells buyers that a third is coming, and offers arrive priced for that expectation.
The cost of underpricing
Deliberate underpricing to create a bidding war works only when inventory in your band is thin and buyer depth is real. In a slow band it simply establishes a lower anchor. Whether it applies to your home is an absorption question, and it has a numeric answer.
When the market disagrees with the analysis
If ten days pass with showings but no offers, the feedback is price. If ten days pass with no showings, the feedback is price or presentation. Either way the response is a decision made from data, on a schedule agreed before launch — not a panicked call in week five.
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The valuation report includes the comparables, the competition and the reasoning behind each end of the range.
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