Price It High and You Can Always Come Down. Can You?
"Price it high. You can always come down." Every seller has heard it. Some believe it. The idea is that a high first price gives you room to negotiate and you lose nothing by trying. I pulled every lived-in home sale and every home that came off the market with no sale in Brentwood, through September 16, 2026. Here is what happened.
Homes that asked the most were the most likely to never sell
188 Brentwood homes came off the market with no sale and never came back. That is 2.1 for every 10 that did sell. The homes that gave up had a typical first asking price of $1,449,500. The homes that sold had a typical first asking price of $1,250,000. That $199,500 gap is not a coincidence. It is a pattern that shows up across every price range in this data.
In the $750K to $1.25M range, 12.6% of homes gave up. That is the lowest give-up rate of any range. Move up to $1.25M to $2M and it rises to 13.2%. At $2M to $3M it jumps to 22.2%. At $3M and up, nearly 3 in 10 homes never found a buyer. The higher the price, the harder the road.
The under-$750K range is worth a closer look. Its give-up rate is 20.5%, higher than the two middle ranges. That tells you the problem is not simply about expensive homes. It is about a price that does not match what buyers are willing to pay, wherever that mismatch lands. But the mismatch is worst at the top.
Time makes it worse. Homes that sold in their first month got 100% of what they first asked. Homes that took three months got 93% of what they first asked. Homes that took five or six months got 89.9%. Every month a home sits, the seller loses ground. Coming down in price does not erase that cost. It adds to it.
Does pricing higher mean giving up more often?
The chart below shows the give-up rate for each price range. The pattern is not perfectly straight, but the direction is clear: the two highest ranges have the two highest give-up rates, and the middle range has the lowest of all.
- Start at a price buyers in your range are actually paying.
- The homes that sold fastest and closest to their asking price were priced where demand already lives.
- If you are above $2M, the data says be sharper on day one, not more flexible later.
- A price drop after weeks on the market costs more than a right price from the start.
What this means for you right now
If you are selling, look at where your home sits in these ranges before you pick a number. Right now, 60.7% of the 349 homes for sale in Brentwood have already dropped their price, with a typical cut of $107,500. Those sellers tried the high-price strategy and are now chasing the market down. The ones who priced well from the start are already closed and gone. At the current pace, it would take 3.6 months to sell every home for sale, which still leans toward sellers, but that edge shrinks fast when your price is out of range.
If you are buying, the give-up numbers are worth watching. 486 homes came off the market with no sale at some point. Of those, 132 are listed again right now. Some of those sellers have adjusted. Some have not. A home that has been through a failed listing and come back is a different negotiation than a fresh one. The $3M-and-up range, where nearly 3 in 10 homes gave up, is where you have the most room to push. Homes priced over $1.25M sold for 94.4% or less of what they first asked, on average, and homes that sat longest gave up the most ground.
Did your home's price range give up or sell?
Your home's price range has its own give-up rate, and it matters before you pick a number. Call or text me and I will send you your home's value today set against the give-up and sold figures for your exact price range in Brentwood. That gives you a real starting point before you list, not a guess.
Call or text me · (512) 555-0134- My market data, every lived-in listing in Brentwood, as of September 16, 2026