I received a call this morning from an agent on this property I have listed in Peoria's Madison Estates.

Her first question is if the home is attached to other homes. Interesting, I thought. The listing says it's a single-family detached. But that information has been known to be wrong, so I'll give it a pass. "No," I say. "What you see is the one home." I go on to explain it's a courtyard home - one driveway leading to four separate homes that face a common courtyard. "Oh, so it's a cottage home?" Well, no. It's a courtyard home. But if you want to call it a cottage home (which I picture as something made of gingerbread), I won't argue semantics.

Red flag #1: "I see it's been on the market 116 days." Congratulations, I think. You can read the listing. Are my friends at ARMLS reading this? Tell me my stigmatized property argument is wrong. "Yes," I say. "That sounds about right."

Red flag #2: "Well as you know this house is priced way above the market?" Gee, not even a segue between the days on market and the price. Okay, I'll go with it. "Actually," I say as charmingly as possible, "it's the best priced home of that size in the subdivision." And it is. "Well it seems like too much money for a cottage home." So I ask her if she actually has viewed any of the comps for Madison Estates/Arizona Pinecrest, knowing full well she hasn't. If she had, she would see the home is priced below recent sales. But why should she work when she can try and bluff? Sadly, she doesn't realize who she's bluffing.

Red flag #3: "Is the investor trying to flip this quick?" In short, it's none of your darn business. But, no, this isn't a quick flip. "But if they've only owned it for a few months ... " My owners actually have owned the house for well over a year ... again, is it too much to ask for her to have done at least 30 seconds of research before picking up the phone? Can someone provide her some remedial sales training?

The final straw: "There are several better priced homes in the area." Sure, I say, in different parts of the city. "No," she insists, "in Peoria." And I kick myself, not because I believe her, but because I don't happen to have the numbers ready off the top of my head. Checking now, there are exactly two homes of this size in the city of Peoria priced below this one - one's a short sale, the other is a preforeclosure.

As my branch manager pointed out, if it pencils out so poorly in your opinion why are you even calling me? Go call the better deals if they're all over Peoria as you've asserted.

It's a rhetorical question, of course. She's calling in hopes that a) my seller is desperate, b) I'm new and stupid or c) she's new and stupid. I'll grant she could be experienced and less than brilliant, I suppose, in that her best negotiating tactic is to call agents and say, "gee that looks high" without ever doing any research.

Unfortunately for her I did my research before I took the listing and I know my area ... I might not have been able to quote the number of comparable homes at lower prices off the top of my head - with 34,000 active single-family homes in Maricopa County, I'm deserving of some slack.

And so who loses? Probably not my seller, as this can't be regarded as someone who was serious anywhere. I'd argue it's this agent's buyer, who is expecting their agent to be able to negotiate professionally on their behalf with an articulated arsenal more well rounded than "nuh-un, uh-huh."