The “greed factor” occurs when people want to price a home to not only maximize their profitability but also to set themselves up to have a certain amount of money left over to put towards other things. Please understand that it is perfectly wonderful to want to generate as much income as possible from a home. A Realtor® should want that for you as well. The more your home is sold for, the greater their commission. Where the “greed factor” becomes dangerous is when you start creating bottom lines for that “extra money”. 

    For example, someone is selling their home and really would like to pay off their student loans as well. They have $11,000 in debt and it would make life so much easier to be rid of it right now. The seller has now told themselves that on top of the “bottom dollar” they would otherwise take for their home, they need to endeavor to get that “extra money” to pay off the loans as well. The problem arises because sale prices are not based on what a seller needs; instead, they are based on the market conditions. When external factors not relating to the home’s actual value come into play, long-term listings and frustrated sellers are usually nearby. 

    A related issue that sellers don’t always realize is that time is of the essence when selling a home. Although that seems like a simple concept, most people are selling their home either to make a profit (from a flip), because they need to move, or because they found something better for themselves. In each of these circumstances, it greatly benefits the seller to be out from under that home (and mortgage payment), and quickly. 

    Studies have shown that a home’s peak period of activity is usually between weeks 3 and 5 on the market. After the 6th week on the market, a home's activity drops off dramatically. If you knowingly price your home well above market value with the idea that “we can always come down on price later”, you will probably completely miss that target time frame when your house would generate the most interest, and thus cause your home to sit stagnant for a much longer time than it might have if you had initially priced it properly.  

    There are a few factors involved with setting a home’s price, but if these two obstacles can be avoided from the beginning, setting the price to sell your home will be much simpler.