Why this focus on list price?

In a hot market with little supply, a list price is a marketing tool to get people into the door, and for a selling realtor to be able to brag about how good they are.

That’s it. It has been like that for years. It doesn’t make sense to post a list price that is too high or accurate (unless you don’t want the hassle to deal with multiple bidders.)

1500 sqft houses in my formerly middle class SV neighborhood are listed at $2.5M and sell for $3.5M within a week. Everybody knows that this $2.5M is imaginary. If you want to know what a house will really sell for, just look at the sales of the past 2 months. It’s a much better indicator.