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Comment by djb_hackernews | Hacker News Reader

This plays out daily in hot real estate markets. I've been casually observing the Boston/Cambridge market and I have to scratch my head when I see properties on the market for only a few days and agents demanding offers by 2 days after the open house. Typically, I see listed on Thursday, OH Sat/Sun, offers due Tuesday evening.

If I were a seller I'd think that we priced the property too low, then again I can imagine sellers just want it over and done with and who cares when it's the difference of locking in 100% appreciation or 108% appreciation.

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As mountineer22 points out, this is a strategy to concentrate serious offers and play them against one another. The lower you set the price, the more initial interest you get, the greater chance two or more potential buyers get excited. With competitive bids, you can find the true 'market' price pretty quickly.

In a hot market this apparently works well.

Anecdotally, when my wife and I were looking for our eventual home in Cambridge a few years ago, we went to more than a couple of "open houses" which were pro forma: Despite being listed on Wednesday, by Saturday the sellers already had an offer they were prepared to accept without even waiting for competitive bids!

Yup, a family member sold their condo in southie in 2014 and got an offer they accepted on the condition they cancel the open house...

This absolutely stinks of seller's agents shirking their fiduciary duty so they can move more properties faster and claim access to an "exclusive" club when they take buyer clients.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we could have waited it out and gotten other, higher offers. We actually chose to pick one that had a longer closing period (the house we wanted is occupied with people that want their kids to finish the school year), and with a dog and a toddler, the constant viewings were pretty inconvenient, enough so I'm happy at a lower price just to get it over with.

I have observed the strategy of the listing agent slightly under-pricing the home to cause a bidding war among willing buyers.

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