One of the most difficult and sensitive things to do during a listing presentation is to get the sellers to see and understand the proposed list price. Try as I might, it's still a careful dance especially when there are other realtors competing for the listing. We've all heard of some realtors "buying" the listing by proposing a higher list price to get the listing.
It helps to augment a marketing plan with statistics. One of the best and local resources for me is DQNews.com's report on Bay Area Home Sale Activity. Instead of generalizing figures that one reads about, this chart provides a zip code view, and thus more believable at the local level. However, it still requires a comprehensive comparable market analysis to come up with a proposed list price.
In Alameda's 94502 zip code, it shows that the median price has actually increased by 1.4% over a year ago. This won't be true for one of my clients who bought a duet for $775K two years ago, made several improvements, but whose house, if I were to list it today, would be valued at $699K --- and that's no guarantee it will sell at that price!
My broker, Michael Studebaker, uses Broker Metrics by Terradatum to get a really good grasp of the market. Here's a June 2008 report on the 2-year review of sold properties and the median price in Alameda, CA. I've included such reports in my presentations. But I am a bit hesitant to put too many statistical data in the presentation and concerned that too much market analysis results in paralysis.
There's got to be a balance between marketing panache and statistical justification. And yes, it's still a very delicate dance.