Pricing is the part of selling that most firms treat as a sales pitch. A higher number wins the listing appointment, and the correction comes six weeks later when the house has gone stale.
We would rather lose the appointment. Here is the method we use on every property, from a $600,000 loft to a $4 million island house.
We start with what sold, not what is listed
Active listings tell you what sellers hope for. Closed sales tell you what buyers did. We build every opinion of value on three to five closed comparables from the last six months, within a tight radius, adjusted for condition, parking and outdoor space.
In Charleston, three adjustments do most of the work: off-street parking, usable outdoor space and whether the systems have been replaced this decade. Square footage matters less than people assume, particularly below Calhoun Street.
Then we read the pending pipeline
Pending sales are the leading indicator. If four comparable homes went under contract in the last three weeks, the market is telling you something that closed sales from March will not.
We call the listing agents. Most will tell us roughly where the contract landed relative to asking, and that conversation has changed our advice more than once.
We price into a search band
Buyers search in round numbers. A house priced at $1,015,000 is invisible to everyone who set their ceiling at a million, and those buyers are exactly the ones who would have stretched for it.
We pick the band that captures the largest honest pool of buyers, then position at the top of it rather than the bottom of the next one up.
- Set the price inside a common search ceiling, not just above one
- Leave room for a negotiation that ends where you need it to
- Never price for the appraisal you hope for
- Review at day 14 if showings have not converted
The uncomfortable conversation
Sometimes our number is well below what a seller has been told elsewhere. We show the comparables, explain the adjustments, and say plainly what we think the first two weeks will look like at each price.
Sellers are adults. In eleven years, nobody has thanked us for agreeing with an optimistic number, and plenty have thanked us for the opposite.
The market will price your house within three weeks whatever you do. You only choose whether that happens on your terms.
What happens after launch
We report every Monday: showings, feedback, saved searches and online activity. If we are getting traffic and no offers, the issue is usually condition or photography. If we are getting no traffic, it is price.
At day 14 we have a scheduled conversation either way. That single habit has kept our sample average at 96.4% of list price across our 2025 closings, without long, tired listings.
