Greed and Seller Home Pricing

Over the past few months, I have seen this home in Lafayette listed, have its price increased twice, taken off the market and then re-listed at its current level. I first saw this house as "Coming Soon" back in January of 2006. It is now July and the house is still on the market.

It's safe to say that back in January, the real estate market in Lamorinda had some different characteristics. When this house first came on the market, I believe the original asking price was $899K. For the square footage and location, that seemed to be a fair price for the home. My guess is that when the listing agent initially put the house out on the market, there was alot of interest in the home. Due to that interest, the seller decided to increase the price to somwhere around $950K, thinking that they were short changing themselves with the initial lower price. Then, I think the seller even got a little more greedy, increasing the home to somewhere in the neighborhood of $999K. This all happened within a span of 1-2 weeks. As someone who is watching the market, I was surprised that this seller would be so quick to adjust the price in a such a short period of time. I can picture the seller counting their profits and kicking themselves for not asking for more money. I have to feel sorry for the listing agent *IF* this is truly what happened, since it is the listing agent's reputation on the line and responsibility to explain the greed of the sellers to all of the home's potential buyers.

Fast forward to July 2006. The home was off the market for a few months for whatever reasons. Now the home has recently come back on the market for an asking price of $850K. So far, there appear to be no takers at the current price. Maybe if the seller had not played musical chairs with the home price back in January, they would have been able to sell it at $899K. I'm sure they are kicking themselves now.