Sometimes all the talk in the world leads us nowhere. Then, a statement of simple common sense reveals all. From Barry Ritholtz, Ritholtz Analytics, commenting in his blog, “The Big Picture”, Friday, December 29, 2006:

I was chatting with the CEO of Coldwell Banker Real Estate in the green room of Kudlow this week. In addition to pointing out this remains the 3rd best year on record, he revealed a lot of common sense with this statement (I am paraphrasing): “Price your house at a reasonable level and it will sell quickly. Overprice it, or assume it’s still 2005, and it won’t move. Houses get stale, and pricing it wrong to begin with is a guaranteed way not to sell it.”