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6 Reasons Why Overpricing Your Home is Detrimental

Even in this seller’s market, there is a limit

Zachary Walston, PT, DPT, OCS
7 min readApr 18, 2021
vitapix from Getty Images

Has your home been sitting on the market for a few weeks without any serious offers? Are you starting to get frustrated because you thought the process would move along a little faster? Unfortunately, it can happen, even in a very hot seller’s market.

The truth is, having your home on the market is incredibly inconvenient, especially if you are still living there. Having to keep it show-ready at all times (especially if you have kids) can be a full-time job in itself. So, it is understandable that you’d like to get it sold already. The good news? There are really only three reasons your home isn’t selling.

Sure, people can (and often do) make it much more complicated than that. But the truth is, it really does come down to three critical factors that will make your home stay on the market longer. The first (and often biggest) is the price. While you are free to list at any price you choose, if you really want to sell your home, overpricing can lead to some serious problems.

Study after study shows that price is the single largest determining factor for length of time on the market. An overpriced home is one of the largest hurdles to overcome and can make even the best-laid marketing plans completely ineffective.

I get it. It’s enticing to price your home a little higher than previous sales to see if you can score big with a full-priced offer. Sure, in theory, this could result in a higher offer and sale price, but that doesn’t mean testing the market by setting your home’s price above what the house is worth to “see if you can get it” is a good strategy. There are a couple of reasons why:

#1 — You lose your peak marketing time

The first 30 days your home is on the market, you have the most leverage as a seller. Your listing is fresh and you have buyers’ attention. If your home is overpriced during this timeline to “see what kind of offer you can get” you will lose traffic and attention during the critical 30-day window.

Pricing a home correctly from the start will help you maximize the attention on your home and allow you the best opportunity to get the highest…

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Zachary Walston, PT, DPT, OCS
Zachary Walston, PT, DPT, OCS

Written by Zachary Walston, PT, DPT, OCS

A physical therapist helping you understand and apply the latest health research | Ebook at www.zacharywalston.com/

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