Fair enough. Maybe this is a recent trend in your area, but in Vancouver people have started referring to asking prices as "liar prices" or "marketing prices" -- they're often set low to attract interest with no intention of actually selling at that price.

In my case, I bought a house last summer and offered exactly the seller's asking price -- which they rejected, countering $5k higher (which I agreed to).

Yeah, but people are listing low to attract more eyeballs.

I sold a place in the bay area 5 years ago. I knowingly listed it about $200k under what we expect it to go for based on comps. Huge swarm of interest and many buyers offering a price at around what we expected.

It's just a sales strategy.

> Yeah, but people are listing low to attract more eyeballs.

Any other year I'd accept that. However, that's unlikely to be true this year - in most US markets. Buyers and renters alike are bidding up properties because there is one property or less for every 100 prospects.

Here, landlords get 400 applicants the first day a rental is listed. The second day they get 400 more unique applicants. The rental we just moved into was up for less than 2 hours and received 50 applications. We won by paying 6 mos in advance + last + 1.5x security.

Look, you don't have to take my word for it, the data is public. Go look up the comps and you'll see they match. There's nothing to "accept," it's just a fact.

There have always been hundreds of prospects for each house sold. When I sold the aforementioned house we got roughly 500 people the first weekend and we were in contract after just a few days. It's been a hot market for a very long time.

Sellers set a low price because the price doesn't matter. It will be bid at the market price regardless.