I recently blogged about Walmart pricing and its pitfalls over on my personal blog, but I wanted to talk about pricing your home strategically here and possibly see how many agents are using pricing as a strategy (remembering to price the home correctly as well).
For example, as discussed on Trulia, would you ever price your home at $423,435?
I'm wondering about the validity of this strategy. If done on purpose, with every listing at $XXX,123 then it could be a tactic to allow buyers and potential sellers browsing competition, find the agent's listing and possibly be impressed by the number of listings.
However, this strategy is as flawed as walmart pricing because it ignores the internet. Search engines like Trulia and Realtor.com are based on 10's and 25's so a home seller who prices their home at $524,900 will only be seen by those searching $525K and below (ie. It won't be seen by those searching $525K and up).
So my question this is if you are an agent do you price it strategically?
If you're a seller, then how would you want it priced?
If you price at 525,000 you are picked up at 525k+ but not the lower bracket. If we have to adjust a price which we have had to, I try to get into a different bracket to capture new buyers.