What is a listing price, and how is it different from the sale price? The price a seller advertises a home at, chosen as a negotiating position from comparable sales; the sale price is what a buyer actually pays, and the gap between the two is the market's verdict.
The listing price is an opening bid in reverse: the seller's public statement of what they will accept, set with their agent from what similar homes have recently sold for and adjusted for strategy. In a hot market it is often set slightly below the expected value to draw several offers and an auction; in a slow one it is set at or above value and cut when the market does not respond. It has no legal force. A seller can decline a full-price offer, and a buyer can offer anything.
Three other prices sit beside it. The original list price is where the listing started, before any cuts; the current list price is what it asks now; the sale price is what the buyer paid at closing, which is what appears in the county record and in the comparable sales the next seller uses. The ratio of sale price to final list price, the list-to-sale ratio, runs a little under 100 percent in a balanced market and above it when buyers compete.
A listing's price history is the most useful thing on the page. A home that has cut twice and sat for ninety days is telling a buyer where the negotiation stands; Kouzr keeps its own daily snapshot of every listing's price so that history survives a relist.
A worked example
A home lists at $475,000, cuts to $459,000 after five weeks and again to $449,000 at ten, and closes at $440,000. Original list $475,000, final list $449,000, sale price $440,000, list-to-sale ratio 98 percent. The comparable sale the next seller's agent uses is $440,000; the $475,000 was never a price anybody paid.
Homes that have cut their listing price
Questions people ask
Is the listing price what the seller will accept?
No. It is what they are asking. Sellers accept less in slow markets and more in fast ones, and the listing's days on market and price history are the guide to which.
Why do listing prices end in 900 or 999?
Charm pricing and search filters. A home at $449,900 appears in searches capped at $450,000 and reads as cheaper than $450,000, for a difference of $100.