It isn’t a couple of years ago, and the market has changed.

From the Hartford Courant:

Seller Won’t Accept Agent’s Advice On Price, Need For Repairs

Q. My real estate agent won’t go along with the price we want to ask for our house. He says that it is too high for the market and that with so many houses for sale, buyers have lots of choices. My husband won’t budge because our neighbors, who didn’t have as nice a house as we do, got $25,000 more than they asked a couple of years ago.

The agent also says our house needs work, but my husband won’t do anything because he says they should buy it as is. Who’s right?

A. First, it isn’t a couple of years ago, and the market has changed. Sellers are no longer in the driver’s seat. If your reasonable-sounding agent did his or her job properly, which is what I suspect, you and your husband were given a competitive market analysis that should list the sale prices of houses comparable to yours that have closed in the past six months in your area. Your husband can always call another agent from another firm, and if that agent is honest, he or she will tell your husband exactly what the first agent told him.

Second, the relative merit of your house vs. that of your former neighbors is subjective. If your husband won’t follow the agent’s advice, why bother with an agent, anyway? Let him try to sell it, and see what happens.

What will happen, I suspect, is that the house will linger on the market. My advice: Keep the agent’s phone number handy. You’ll need it.