Every seller thinks their house is the exception. The one where starting a little high "just to see" doesn't really hurt anything. Worst case, you can always lower the price later, right?
Well... yes. You can.
You can also put ketchup on a steak.
Being allowed to do something doesn't necessarily make it a good idea. And there is actually some pretty interesting data showing just how much those first few weeks on the market matter.
What Actually Happens When You Price Too High
A Realtor.com study released in June 2026 looked at the U.S. housing market and found a pretty significant relationship between time on market and what sellers ultimately received relative to their asking price. Homes that closed around the four-week mark sold about 1.8 percentage points above the monthly average sale-to-list ratio for comparable homes. Homes that were still sitting around eighteen weeks sold about 1.3 percentage points below it. That's a spread of more than three percentage points between the two.
Even more interesting, the strongest performers in that four-week group had generally gone under contract within the first two weeks. Realtor.com's analysis also found that price reductions tend to spike after those critical opening weeks.
Now, that's U.S. data, and I'm not going to pretend American statistics magically become New Brunswick statistics because they're convenient for a blog post. But the psychology behind it certainly isn't exclusive to Americans.
A new listing gets attention. Buyers get alerts. Realtors notice it. People who have been watching that neighbourhood click on it. Buyers who have been waiting for the right house book showings. That's your window. Price it properly and you're using all that initial attention to your advantage. Price it high because you want to "leave room to negotiate" and you risk wasting the period when your listing has the most attention it is ever going to get.
Buyers notice. They're not fooled. They're usually just too polite to tell you.
What Could That Look Like Here?
Again, the Realtor.com study is U.S. data. We don't have a Greater Moncton study proving that a home sitting eighteen weeks will automatically sell for exactly 3.1% less than one selling quickly, so I'm not going to tell you that we do.
But applying that 3.1 percentage-point spread to our July 2026 median sale prices gives us an interesting illustration of the kind of money we're talking about:
Greater Moncton, median sale price of $362,000: roughly $11,220
Dieppe, median sale price of $412,400: roughly $12,780
Riverview, median sale price of $364,250: roughly $11,290
Shediac and the coast, median sale price of $347,450: roughly $10,770
Those aren't measured local losses caused by overpricing. They're simply examples of what a three-point difference represents at the price levels we're dealing with here.
Ten or twelve grand isn't exactly pocket change.
More importantly, our local CREA numbers show why pricing can't be treated the same across every part of Greater Moncton. Different districts and sub-districts have different inventory levels, days on market, sale-to-list ratios and levels of buyer demand. Your neighbourhood can be behaving very differently from one ten minutes down the road.
That's why pricing a home based on "what houses are going for in Moncton" isn't nearly specific enough. The market doesn't care about Greater Moncton as one giant blob. It cares about what buyers are willing to pay for your type of house, in your area, right now.
Why "Leave Room to Negotiate" Is Backwards
I hear this constantly: "Let's price it a little high. We can always come down later."
Technically true. Here's the part nobody seems nearly as excited about. Every week the house sits, buyers start asking a different question. At first it's, "What's wrong with the price?" Eventually it becomes, "What's wrong with the house?"
Those are two very different problems.
You finally reduce the price three or six weeks later, except now it's not a new listing anymore. The buyers who were most interested have already seen it. Some have bought something else. Others see the price reduction and smell blood in the water. Now instead of negotiating from a position of strength, you're trying to convince buyers that the house they already passed over deserves another look.
That's not exactly the master plan.
Pricing properly doesn't necessarily mean pricing low, either. That's an important distinction. It means pricing at a number the current market can support. Sometimes that's aggressive. Sometimes it's conservative. Sometimes the market is strong enough that pricing slightly below where you expect to sell can create competition.
But the strategy should come from the market, not from the number we'd really, really like the house to be worth.
What I Actually Do When Pricing a Home
Here's the real process, not the marketing version.
I normally start with properties that have actually SOLD in the neighbourhood or district over roughly the previous 90 days. Current listings matter because they're your competition, but an asking price doesn't prove market value. Anybody can ask anything they want for a house. Sold properties tell us what buyers actually agreed to pay.
From there I look for the closest comparable properties I can find, considering things like:
Location and neighbourhood
Property style and approximate square footage
Bedrooms and bathrooms
Age and overall condition
Lot size
Garage and outbuildings
Finished basement space
Renovations and upgrades
Major components such as roofing, windows and heating systems
From those sales I build a Comparative Market Analysis, but that's only the first layer.
I cross-reference those comps against CREA statistics for the specific district and sub-district whenever the available data is meaningful. I'm looking at sale-to-list ratios, median days on market, months of inventory, current listings and recent sales activity. I also look at the MLS® Home Price Index and benchmark prices for the area and property type as another check against what the individual comparable sales are telling me.
Then there's something I informally call the neighbourhood ceiling.
Some subdivisions were largely built during the same period, with homes of similar size, style and construction. You might have a beautifully renovated house with $150,000 worth of upgrades, but if that neighbourhood has never produced a sale anywhere near the number you're hoping for, we need to pay attention to that.
Buyers don't suddenly forget where the house is because you installed a really nice kitchen.
There is usually a practical upper end to what a particular neighbourhood will support.
Finally, I look at the house itself. What's been renovated? What's original? What's been maintained? What hasn't? Are the roof, windows, heating system, kitchen and bathrooms relatively current, or are some of those things approaching replacement?
And no, something being twenty years old and not having exploded yet doesn't necessarily qualify as an "upgrade."
The comps tell me what buyers have been willing to pay. The active listings tell me what today's buyers can choose from. The market statistics tell me what is happening in that particular area. The house itself tells me where it belongs within that range.
Put all of that together and I arrive at the number I'm prepared to recommend, backed by actual market data rather than what I think you want to hear.
The Market Doesn't Care What You Need
This is probably the least popular part of the conversation.
Your mortgage balance doesn't determine market value. Neither does what you paid for the house, what you've spent renovating it, or how much money you need from the sale to buy your next home.
Those things absolutely matter to you, and they're important when deciding whether selling makes financial sense. But they don't change what a buyer is willing to pay.
I've had sellers tell me another agent said their house was worth considerably more than my analysis showed.
Could that agent be right and I be wrong? Absolutely.
I'm a Realtor®, not Moses coming down the mountain with your property's market value carved into a stone tablet.
But I can show you exactly how I arrived at my number. And if someone else's number is significantly higher, I'd want to see the sales and market data supporting it.
Because promising someone the highest price at the kitchen table is easy.
Selling the house for it is the part that counts.
The Bottom Line
Pricing a home isn't about finding the biggest number we can possibly justify and hoping somebody eventually pays it. It's about finding the number where the property, the neighbourhood and the current market intersect.
You want buyers paying attention while the listing is fresh. You want showings. You want interest. Ideally, you want more than one person deciding they want the same house, because that's where sellers get leverage.
Not three months later after two price reductions and thirty-seven conversations about why nobody is making an offer.
If you're thinking about selling, I'll run the actual numbers and show you exactly what I'm seeing.
You may love the number. You may hate the number. But at least it'll be based on the market instead of hope.
Call or text 506-852-6477. No pressure, just straight answers.
Strong Roots - Smart Moves
Shane MacPherson, REALTOR®, eXp Realty
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