This is one of my listings that I sold this summer in just 35 days! 3209 Florida Avenue South in St. Louis Park. It's always an exciting moment for me when I have a listing appointment with a potential seller. I love to sell homes and I really love to discuss with my clients the different aspects of what it takes to sell their home selling, examining the comparative market analysis that I have prepared and what to expect during the selling process. BUT WAIT! Once in a while, the seller seems to think that they know what the price of their home should be (or wants it to be)! This makes it a bit difficult for me to proceed when they already have a pre-conceived notion in their heads. I continue with my listing appointment, none-the-less, and look at all of the aspects of what will go in to the pricing decision. Most of the time, we will agree to price the home properly and all's well that ends well. Inevitably, there are sellers who resist and insist on pricing it higher than what the market will bear, or,in other words, what the buyers are willing to pay. This sets both the sellers and myself up for disaster. What are the objections of the sellers when I advise them to list their home lower than they believe it should be?

• The neighbors down the street sold their home for the price that we want to list ours at and it's even not as nice.
• We have to get this much, or we'll be upside down.
• We put a lot of money into this house to fix it up. Just look at the bathroom!
• We have our eye on a new house up the road and it will take this price for us to be able to do it.
• We've lived here for ten years and we expect lots of equity by now.
• We want to price it higher so that we have some wiggle room if a low offer comes in.

These are actual comments that I have heard. So, if I don't make it clear as to what the market is doing and they won't listen, I have a choice to make. I either take the listing at the price my sellers want to sell it at, or advise them that I will not list their home at the price they want and risk losing the listing and subsequent sale.

To be frank, I've done both. In either scenario, I've never been wrong about where the price should be when it was originally listed. It's a matter of whether my clients will cooperate. I have taken listings at too high a starting point and I have walked away from potential listings where I knew that it would never sell at the high price. At some point, I let the sellers know that I cannot sell their home at the current price and it has to be lowered. If they don't want to or can't, then it's time for us to part ways. This happened to me twice this summer. Both times, the sellers went with another Realtor and immediately lowered the price to where I had suggested! What!!!???

Are the sellers just saving face by making such a seemingly illogical decision? I have mentioned this phenomenon to fellow Realtors and they have gone through the same thing with their buyers, too. I have not figured it out yet, but I will persevere to get the answer.