It is the sellers setting prices. You can market all you want, you can show them all the data you want. Many people have to go through the process of watching a home sit for many weeks/months before they realize that the home they own is not immune to the downturn. Furthermore there are many realtors who will indeed provide reenforcement to incorrect pricing simply to get the listing. Even in my case I have a listing now where my recommended price was a good 20% less then the actual list price. In this case the sellers are a friend of someone close to me so I took it. There have been all of 3 showings in over a month. There are other cases where I took an overpriced listing and told the sellers flat out I will take your listing but it is overpriced in my opinion and I am skeptical of how much activity you will get. Other times I don’t take them. As a realtor sometimes you take it simply to get the traffic and hopefully other leads. If you do not others will. If nobody takes it, the owner will still find resources to put it on the market such as a Jeff Karchin or other more automated or discount realtors who will do it.
Also if someone does buy it who is to say who is wrong?
I am not trying to support an incorrect pricing strategy. Yet a very small percentage of posters here go to listing appointments and see the same repetitive behavior and hear the same things over and over again. I passed on the Surf Crest listing that came on a few weeks ago because of the pricing. The guy wanted to list at 1.4M with me. At least the Assist to Sell agent got him down some but not as much as it should be in my humble opinion.
The psychology of both buyers and sellers is much different then many of the logical perceptions owned by many who post on this site. People here are confounded by sticky sellers and just as confounded by buyers on the market who continue to buy homes albeit at lower numbers.
It is frustrating but eventually it will play out.
