Why Testing the Market High Almost Always Backfires

I want to be honest with you today, because I think there’s a real lesson in it. I had a listing that didn’t sell.

That’s a painful thing for an agent to admit, and it stings on a couple of levels. I feel like I let my clients down, which I never want to do. And practically, the only time I actually get paid is when a home closes, so I spent months on this, paid for photography, prepped the house, put it on the market, watched it sit, and walked away with no reward and a lot of disappointment for everyone.

But I’m telling you the story because understanding what happened here might genuinely help you when it’s your turn to sell.

Here’s the setup. This was a beautiful home. Dated, but very desirable, in a fantastic neighborhood. It was also an estate, so I was working with a trustee, and pricing it was genuinely tricky.

I pulled the comparables and gave the seller a price range. At the end of the day, they chose where to price it, based partly on my information and partly on their own view, and their philosophy was, “let’s test the market.”

That’s a fine philosophy sometimes. But in this market, I’d argue testing the market on the high end is almost always a mistake.

Testing high and testing low are not the same thing. When you test the market on the low end with a desirable property, something great tends to happen: you draw multiple offers and the home often sells over list.

That’s not theory. It happened for another client of mine just days ago, we priced aggressively and the home closed about $42,000 over list.

But testing high does the opposite, and here’s why.

We priced this one high, and at first it looked right. We listed in the mid-$800s, and because it was a desirable home in a desirable neighborhood, we had immediate action. I actually thought, “maybe I was wrong, maybe we priced it perfectly.”

And then the action stopped. Crickets. Nothing.

That silence is the market telling you something, and what it was telling us was that the price and the condition weren’t matching what buyers would pay.

So it sat, and we chased. We dropped the price, dropped it again, and dropped it again, ending up more than $120,000 under our original list. Let that sink in.

And the worst part? Even at that price, we still didn’t get an offer.

The seller decided to pull it off the market and wait for conditions to improve. That wasn’t my recommendation, a vacant home doesn’t tend to gain value just by sitting, but at the end of the day, the client drives the ship, and I respect that.

Here’s the honest diagnosis. The marketing worked. We had people constantly coming through, lots of showings, real interest. People loved the house and loved the neighborhood.

What they didn’t love was the price. And the only lever you can pull at that point is price, which means you end up chasing the market down, which is exactly what a seller never wants to do.

We had three of the four things you need going for us: good condition, a desirable home, a desirable neighborhood. The one we got wrong was pricing, and that one was enough to sink the whole thing.

Now let me zoom out, because the national story and the Eugene story are two different things. Nationally, affordability is stretched about as far as it’s been. Homes are expensive relative to income, we’re seeing a correction, and a lot of listings are quietly withdrawing because they never sell. In fact, the number of withdrawn listings nationally is now about 83% higher than it was just two years ago.

Eugene is a different picture, at least for now. Our inventory is still relatively low, our average days on market is in the mid-30s, which is a decent market, and we remain slightly favorable to sellers.

But here’s the thing: as a smaller town, Eugene tends to trail the bigger metros like Portland, Seattle, and the national headlines. So when you read “it’s a buyer’s market, homes are sitting, listings are expiring,” that’s the national picture, and it’s true. We’re just a step behind it.

That’s exactly what you have to recognize when we price your home: we need to price ahead of the market, not behind it.

This is the perfect storm that knocks homes off the market. Sellers believe their home is worth up here, buyers can afford down here, and somewhere in the middle is the number where it actually sells.

The job of a good agent is to have the honest conversation and educate you on where that number really is. Plenty of agents won’t tell sellers what they need to hear. And if you want your home to sell, you need it in good condition, priced appropriately, and ready to move in.

This listing is a perfect example of what happens when one of those pieces is missing.

So that’s my honest story. It doesn’t always work out, but you always have to look at why, and what could have been done differently. Had we priced it right from the start, my experience says we probably would have sold it on that initial wave of interest, the same interest that later evaporated once buyers decided the price was wrong.

I don’t want you to make the mistake this seller made.

If you’re thinking about selling, give me a call and I’ll walk you through the process and tell you honestly what I’d recommend. At the end of the day, you drive the boat, and I’ll do my best to help you park it, not run it into the dock.

Call or text me at 541-852-2565, email me at darren@rickettsgroup.net, or visit blog.rickettsgroup.net for more information.