I want to talk about something that comes up almost every time I sit down with a seller for the first time, because it's one of the most misunderstood parts of successfully selling a home.

Most sellers think pricing is about picking a number that reflects what the home is worth. It isn't, not really. A price doesn't set value. It sets how many buyers show up willing to find out what the value is. That distinction sounds small, but it changes everything about how a sale actually plays out.

Here's where it gets costly. When many sellers interview agents, they naturally gravitate toward two things: whoever suggests the highest price, and whoever offers the lowest commission. Both feel like the obvious, rational choice. A higher number feels like validation, and a lower fee feels like straightforward savings. But neither one is actually a measure of what will happen once the home is on the market, and choosing an agent based on those two factors alone is one of the most expensive mistakes a seller can make. A high suggested price isn't a prediction, it's often just a pitch, and it tends to produce the opposite of what a seller actually wants. Price a home too high and you don't attract more interest, you attract less. Serious buyers self-select out early, the home sits, and every subsequent price reduction sends its own signal to the market. By the time the number comes back down to where it should have started, much of the natural attention the home would have had is gone. 

A discounted commission rarely means real savings either, since it often comes paired with less marketing, less negotiating leverage, and less of the attention that actually drives up the final price. That's how sellers who chose based on the highest number and the lowest fee often end up walking away with less than those who chose more carefully.

The mechanics behind this are worth understanding, because they explain why. With one buyer in the room, there's no real tension working in the seller's favor. That buyer knows they're the only one, so they can take their time, ask for concessions, and walk away knowing the house will still be there next week. The seller is negotiating alone against them.

The moment a second serious buyer enters, the dynamic shifts, and it has nothing to do with anything the seller said or did. Now the buyers are responding to each other, not just to the house. That's not a tougher negotiation tactic. It's a different room entirely and it's the single biggest advantage a seller can have, more so than any hard-nosed conversation at the closing table.

Timing matters here too. Every home has a window when buyer attention is naturally at its peak, those first days on the market when it's new and unseen. A home priced to draw interest during that window can create the kind of buzz and excitement that leads to competition. A home priced too high to attract attention during that window, then reduced later, is trying to recreate a moment that's already passed and there is real stigma as buyers no longer want a house that wasn’t instantly scooped up. To top it off, interest that trickles in one buyer at a time, weeks apart, simply doesn't produce the same result as interest that arrives together.

None of this is a promise that every home will get multiple offers. It won't, and I'd rather be honest about that than tell you otherwise. What I can tell you is that the price is the invitation. It's the one variable within a seller's control, and it deserves more thought than picking whichever number sounded best in an interview.

I share the following not to boast, but because it's a real illustration of what getting this right actually does. Year after year, our team has earned the highest average price per square foot in Lafayette, running about 21% above the average for Lafayette agents. We're full fee Realtors, so we don't discount our commission, yet our clients consistently walk away with substantially more money in their pockets. So far in 2025 and 2026 when analyzing Lamorinda sales, fewer than 10% of our listings have needed a price reduction, while another top 10 Lamorinda agent has seen that number climb as high as 37%. The gap isn't luck. It's the difference between pricing to invite the right attention from day one and pricing to see what happens.

If you're weighing a sale this fall, or just want to talk through what your home's window might look like, I'm always happy to grab coffee and think it through together.