We Missed the Mark on Price. Now What?
Okay. We missed the mark. Now what?
First, your property isn't doomed.
We made a pricing decision using the information we had before your home hit the market. Now we have something we didn't have then: actual buyer response.
Maybe the showings aren't there. Maybe buyers are touring but not writing offers. Or maybe we're getting offers, but they're telling us a pretty consistent story about value.
Whatever brought us here, we can't go back and choose a different starting price.
The useful question now is: What gives us the best position from here?
Did We Hurt the Listing?
Maybe a little, but that doesn't mean we can't change course.
The first days and weeks on the market are valuable because that's when a listing is new and buyers who have been waiting for something like your home are most likely to notice it. Spending too much of that time at a price buyers aren't responding to can cost us some momentum.
But recognizing that something isn't working and making a thoughtful change is very different from allowing a listing to sit indefinitely.
Our job now is to use what we've learned.
Should We Wait a Little Longer?
Sometimes.
There isn't a magic number of days that automatically means it's time for a price adjustment.
We'll look at how long similar homes in your area are taking to sell, what new competition has entered the market, whether buyers are touring your home, what feedback we're receiving, and whether anything in the market has changed since we listed.
If homes like yours are taking 30 days to attract an offer, day 10 may not concern me.
If comparable homes are going under contract in a week and we're sitting quietly at day 20, that's a different conversation.
Days on market only mean something when we put them in context.
How Much Should We Adjust?
If we're going to change the price, I don't want to reduce it just so we can say we reduced it.
The new price should have a purpose.
That might mean putting the home into a different buyer search bucket, creating a stronger value compared with competing homes, or responding to what buyers have consistently told us about the property.
A small adjustment isn't necessarily the safer adjustment if it leaves us in exactly the same position.
We'll look at the numbers and talk through what different price points could accomplish before deciding what makes sense.
Will Buyers Think We're Desperate?
A price adjustment doesn't automatically mean desperation.
Homes change price for all kinds of reasons. Market conditions change. Competition changes. Sellers receive new information.
What matters most to a buyer is what your home offers now compared with the other choices available to them.
We're not trying to explain or defend the old price. We're positioning the home for the market that's in front of us today.
Can We Still Negotiate?
Absolutely.
Changing the list price doesn't mean agreeing in advance to accept less than that—or accepting every term a buyer asks for.
An offer is the beginning of a conversation.
We'll still look at the entire offer: price, financing, concessions, closing date, contingencies and everything else that affects your bottom line and your goals.
A counteroffer isn't a bad thing. Sometimes we simply need to ask for what we want and see where the conversation goes.
So, What Do We Do Now?
There are almost always options.
If the market is telling us we missed the mark, I'm not going to simply hand you a price reduction amendment and tell you to sign it.
I'll show you what we're seeing, explain the reasons behind my recommendations, and walk you through the options we have from here.
Then you can confidently decide what comes next.
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