In the current housing market, buyers have some extraordinary opportunities. In the current housing market, sellers are missing some extraordinary opportunities.  They are missing opportunities because they are not tuning in to the one thing they need to do. They need to price their home correctly.

 Homes are selling. Buyers are buying. What homes are they are buying? They're buying the ones that have not languished on the market for months turning into years as a seller tries to test the market with incremental price drops following an unrealistic original asking price. Some sellers are dropping their prices too late and finally get to the right one when they are already old news.  

 Price points are critical because they appeal to the psychological limits that buyers place on themselves. By pricing a home at $299,000, a seller will get buyers looking up to that range. The $300,000 price will feel just out of reach to buyers for whom that is their limit. Conversely, buyers for whom $300,000 is their low end will likely not buy that low. Therefore, this seller's home attracts the notice of neither buyer in either range.

 This all sounds simple, but sellers are just not doing it. The ones that are, however, are meeting across closing tables and moving on with their lives. It doesn't matter what one wants to reap from the sale because they bought too high or over-improved the home. The price setting must be predicated on: the prices of homes in the area, the realtor-provided comparative market analysis of homes sold in the area, and the saturation of homes for sale in the area. These factors don't even include the condition of the home and the amenities that are critical to break it out of the pack. The mentality to enter the market is not "when should I cut my price?" but "what is the most realistic price that will get me in the game?" The right price is not what the seller wants and what they think the home is worth, but what the market tells the seller the home is worth. It IS a market after all! Fluctuations and corrections are factors.

 Buyers today and their realtors are savvy enough to watch trends and the price path certain homes take. If a home is on the market for inside of a year with no deals or hints of deals, the seller is setting himself up to be pounced upon, if he is lucky. The seller may even wind up selling at a lower price then he ever would have had to if the home were priced correctly from the beginning. The strategy is to be proactive and not reactive. A seller does not need to doom himself to chase down the market.