I'm not the only optimistic one

Century 21 meeting went FABULOUS last night. It is a mother-daughter team that helped us when we were looking for land last year. Although the daughter seemed more pragmatic regarding the house & a listing price, I had to pretty much talk the other agent down from her crazy plans of listing the house for 10% more than what I think it is worth. This after she just spent fifteen minutes explaining the down-fall of overpricing in a competitive market. The surprising turn of events stems from the fact I think the house should be listed fairly low, while she was worried we would want to list it for a really high price (being n00bies and all).

They got in the front door, we did a tour of the house, they gave their marketing spiel, and then she gave me the price she thought was appropriate. The whole time she was talking prices, she was like "Is this shocking to you?", trying to gauge our reactions. I think she was worried we had our hopes set much too high after getting the tour, not realizing that we have a nice house because we are awesome "clearance-rack shoppers". The house is amazing, but we never went over our (really modest) building budget. We were like "No! this isn't shocking at all: www.mls.ca is my best friend, I know what the houses around here go for. I think you're nuts to list it above 200,000. In fact we had this __ (modest) price in mind". And then the game shifted, and she tried to convince us it was worth much more than what we had planned to list it for. She's convinced it would sell at a (way) higher price, since it shows so well.

"It's water-front!" she says

"It's industrial park!" I say

"It's got cherry cabinets!" she says

"There are two dead cars, a snow plow and a camper parked in our neighbours yard!" I say

She even told us not to bother making a cabinet to hide the ugly-ass stacking washer and dyer, nor finish the basement, nor put up the shutters we've already purchased. (Well, she thought it was just planned shutters when we were talking about it). She wants to list it, like right now. No finishing touches, no staging the house, nothing.

Given her ridiculous reaction, I'm going to take this meeting as encouragement that we have set realistic plans for selling the house. It is all going according to plan. Muahahaaa!!