There is no easy way to say this, "Pick the wrong price and you will be doomed to languish on the market." All the marketing and advertising will be wasted along with a lot of time.
Time, as in "time on market", is one of the most important Real Estate statistics. This is the one piece of data that every buyer asks for when viewing a home. In fact, I can't ever remember a buyer not asking me "How long has this home been on the market?" Every buyer wants to know this because if the home has been on the market for a long time, the buyer feels like there will be more room to negotiate. It is just human nature. Buyers also may feel there could be something wrong with the home when it has been on the market for an extended period of time.
The way the MLS system works is: it prevents a Realtor from re-listing a home to set the days on market back to zero. In order for a homes days on market to be reset to zero it now must be off the market for 91 days. But even, then a savvy agent knows to lookup the history of the property to pass on the information to his/her clients.
In 2011, it is extremely important to price your home to sell. Right now, are fierciest competitiors are the distressed properties for sale. It is almost impossible to compete with some short sales or REO's unless the seller is in tune with the market and economy.
Yes, there are still sellers who seem to dig their hills in and perhaps have an emotional attachment to their home and seem to forget that if they want to sell; they need to be in alighnment with what the market will bear. Not with what the seller thinks his/her house is worth, but what the potential buyers will offer based on the data and recent comparable sales.
Another tactic to determine a listing price would be to hire a certified real estate appraiser to conduct an appraisal on your property. That will give the seller some confidence as to what the lending instiutions will be analyzing if indeed the buyer requires a mortgage.
