It is hard to price

It is hard to price a personal home. Double the difficulty when the market changes. When the market changes like it has in the last 3 years we tend to remember a higher price. This applies to trading cards, antiques, cars and on and on. Take for example the price point we might have thought our home was worth BEFORE November 2008 (when the mid west, Texas and Austin fell into the real estate recession once the stock market crashed).
Even though we did not want to sell our home around this time in 2007 & pre November 2008, we still had a vague idea on price. Fast forward to today and the need to sell. It is hard to change the number from the peak of that 2007 & summer '08 pricing to current 2011 pricing. We naturally want to hold onto the higher price. This is one reason a home sits on the market and inventory builds compounding the need to price right.
Second most difficult aspect to pricing is a price correction, or reducing a price after "x" number of days on the open market. If for example a home needs to decrease its asking price by $10,000 it could be argued that $10k is lost. Another way to discuss a price reduction is the fact the $10k was just never there to begin with in the current environment. Gold is an example of a current market condition that currently rewards a person for holding the longest. In other markets like housing there is a volume of sellers that under cut the rest. This brings back the number one most important question in selling in residential real estate, your "why"? Your "why" will aid in setting your price.