List price strategies - RE Agent strategies

[James H.]

I'm tying to better understand retail listings. When I placed my house for sale the agent I was using was really supportive of setting it at a pretty high price since I would not need to sell for 6 months (then I ended up not selling anyways). I was asking 75K. but doubt the neighborhood could support much more than 60K, maybe 55K at the time.

Recently, I have been looking for a new home to purchase in about 6 months. I scrub the avaliable listings on-line to get an idea of what is going on until I am ready to buy and begin requesting comps from an agent.

I noticed that a particular house was listed at 149K. This house is in a good neighborhood but needs a fair amount of work. It is livable, but its condition would likely preclude it from a VA loan (which are fairly strict) and I'm unsure if it would qualify for conventional - probably would.

Then, a house almost directly across the street, same age, within 100 SF but in basically perfect condition goes up for 130K. Then I see the first house for 149K also drop to 130K. Now they are both priced the same, but the second house to go up for sale is in WAY better condition.

Is there any way to understand what could have been going through the people's and agents minds when setting the asking prices? Are there general guidelines agents go by when recommending list prices? Any rhyme or reason, or is it just 100 percent variable?