It's easy for people to say, Never Take An Overpriced Listing..... However, I've learnt a few good lessons from this:

While I do agree that we should never take an overpriced listing, what I learnt most importantly is to never say the word, Never.

Back to the original question, the word should be it depends.

First of all, the motivation. Again, all Sellers project their motivations differently. I've had a Seller who told me that she needed to sell her house YESTERDAY. Listing with a different agent who promised her a more aggressive marketing plan than mine (that was what she said I lost out to) and almost 5 months later, it's still not priced correctly. So, how motivated is she really is? Nevertheless, motivation is the key to whether or not you might consider taking the listing.

Remember that having lots of listings is not good for your business or your health. If you were like me that sends a weekly report of showings and feedbacks, new activities (actives, pending and solds), suggestions and recommendations, this report itself takes me 3 hours to prepare. Just imagine if you had 10 of these, or 25 of these (the non-selling ones!)..... All you would be doing is reports ALL week! Having them motivated and priced correctly is the key.

Not all listings are saleable.

i do a weekly report as well. i think it is a great idea and i have been doing it since day 1. the seller should know the feedback from any activity on thier home and be up to date on the neighborhood activity.

the way that i do it as follows.

i have a map search cma with the criteria saved in my mls search. i only have to hit a button to note any changes in the area ie.. new homes on the market, selling prices of homes under contract and new homes under contract. then i call them and go over the results.

I've seen many overpriced listings sell. Many times I've taken a listing that I thought was too high only to learn that my logic and comparables proved useless. It may have been a fluke, however it happened. I do direct sellers where their home should sell, but if we don't agree I'm willing to work with them if they're willing to listen to me if their home isn't moving.

why do you think you lost the listing?

Sometimes you'll never get the listing after it expires because the bull-headed seller can't bear the thought of you saying you told him so.

But it's definitely worth the wait to try, anyway, and if you still don't get the listing, be comforted that you never spent a dime wasting your time while the other listing-buying agents go in the hole.

And also seeing that seller never sell even after a couple years of trying at "his price" is a nice feeling. I know this sounds like a bad attitude...but it feels good sometimes knowing you were right and you moved on to deal with other realistic clients!

It is funny that this thread is bummed up now. The house just got reduced $5000 today but is still about $40,000 above fair market value. I did get a call this morning from a seller which rejected a full price offer last year to do a new CMA for him since he had rented out the house. They rejected $510,000 in August and now I think it should list around $479,000 and sell for about $470,000.

If the motivation is there though, the listing would not be over priced to begin with. So instead the agent has wasted 5 months or marketing, and energy, on a property that will never sale? The seller don't want to here its priced to high, they want to hear how much more money you are throwing at the property to move it.

So then that sign just sits there month after month. No activity. The neighborhood is watching, thinking that agent is no good. The seller is likely getting mad at the agent and telling eveybody that you cant sell his underpriced listing.

So you take an overpriced listing, you finally get them motivated, then your listing contract expires, they use somebody else to relist. You still loose.

That house has been on the market for a little over a month. In that genereal price range, of the 33 listings in the city, noly 2 of them are under deposit and 1 is pending. The sign is up, but there is no name rider which is surpsing since their current agent lives a few houses up the road.

Don't sweat it. You win some, you lose some. If he's overpriced and truly wants to sell...just give it time. Most likely the agent who "bought" the listing will most likely fail and when it expires you will have an opportunity to bring up the discussion of helping him sell his home and hopefully this seller will be more receptive to using you the second, third time around.