Same Market, Same Agent, Two Completely Different Results

By Darren Ricketts

Darren Ricketts is the Team Leader of the Ricketts Group at eXp Realty, serving clients throughout Eugene, Oregon, and the surrounding areas.

Let’s have some fun and talk about a tale of two transactions, two listings I recently had with two very different experiences, and more importantly, why they went the way they did. I’m going to break it down honestly, including the parts that aren’t flattering to me, because there’s a real lesson in the comparison.

Example one: a beautiful home in a beautiful neighborhood. Technically, it was dated, and that’s genuinely okay, plenty of buyers want to move in and make a place their own. But when a home is dated, you have to price it accordingly. After reviewing my CMA, the seller chose a list price that, in my humble opinion, was on the high side. They wanted to test the market, and I said, great, we can absolutely do that. Here’s the honest result: it was an epic failure, and I’ll own that, because at the end of the day I’m the responsible party. It’s my fiduciary duty to get you where you want to go, and this time I didn’t. The listing expired. We never sold the house.

Over months of trying, we reduced the price by $120,000, and it still didn’t sell. We had plenty of showings, strong marketing, tons of online activity, but not a single offer the entire time. The house was in great shape. It just wasn’t staged, and it was priced to test the market on the high side. That was the result.

Example two: a very different story. We priced this one aggressively, right on target with the market. We had all the inspections ready to go, the home was in terrific shape with a really nice remodel, we marketed it well, and we had it staged, it was genuinely charming inside. What happened? We hit the market with a wave of activity right from the start, and within the first three days we had two solid offers competing against each other. The house closed at $42,000 over list. Let that sink in.

So put them side by side. House one: months on the market, a $120,000 price reduction, and still no sale. House two: three days on the market, two competing offers, and a close $42,000 over list. Which one would you rather be?

Here’s the honest part, and it matters. I’d love to take full credit for house two, but the truth is in the difference between the two sellers. With house one, they listened to me on some things, but not on the one that counted most, the price. With house two, we had great conversations, we walked through everything together, and they said, “You’re the expert, Darren, price it where you think it should be.” The result, in both my opinion and my seller’s, was terrific. Same market. Same agent. Same marketing effort. The variable was whether the seller trusted the pricing strategy.

That’s really the takeaway I want you to have. This is a complex market, one where an identical level of effort produces a home that sits untouched in one case and a bidding war in another. That’s exactly why it matters who you list with. You want a full-time, licensed professional who has done this a time or two, in my case, something like 550 or 600 times, and who will tell you the truth about your price even when it’s not what you hoped to hear. Because at the end of the day, how you list your house determines whether it sells for top dollar, or doesn’t sell at all.

If you’re thinking about selling and you want an honest read on your home and your price, let’s talk. Call or text me at 541-852-2565, email me at darren@rickettsgroup.net, or visit blog.rickettsgroup.net. Let’s make sure you’re the seller with the three-day sale, not the one still waiting.