Pricing a Luxury Listing in Calgary
The first 21 days set the trajectory for the entire sale. Here's how I think about pricing strategy at the top of the market.
At the high end of the market, pricing is the entire game. The first 21 days of a listing generate 80% of the qualified showings; what happens after that is largely a function of the price you set on day one.
No one pays full price for a stale donut. A home that sits without offers for 60 days carries a perceptual penalty that no amount of staging or photography will erase. The market reads the days-on-market field.
My approach: I price every luxury listing within 3% of the supportable comparable range. That gives the first wave of buyers a sense that the home is fairly priced, and it gives me room to negotiate without erasing the seller's position.
The temptation to test the market with an aspirational price is real, and I understand it. But every week the home sits over its supportable price, the eventual sale price erodes by roughly 0.5%. Eight weeks of testing typically costs more than the would-be upside.
The right price isn't the highest price. It's the price that gets the home in front of every qualified buyer in the first 21 days, and lets the strongest of them compete.
REALTOR® at Rivers Real Estate · Synterra Realty. Spencer represents buyers and sellers across Calgary's luxury communities — Springbank Hill, Aspen Woods, Upper Mount Royal, Elbow Park, Britannia, and Bel-Aire.
