Every seller I meet believes their unit is the exception. The one that's worth pushing the price on. Sometimes they're right. Most of the time, the market doesn't care how they feel about it, and pricing too high just means a longer, more expensive road to the same number they could have had on day one.
The number that actually matters
Not your original purchase price. Not what your neighbour's unit sold for two years ago, back when the market moved differently. The number that matters is what's actually closed in your building in the last 90 days. Everything else is a story you're telling yourself, and buyers aren't listening to it.
Why the first two weeks decide everything
A new listing gets the most attention it will ever get in its first two weeks. Every agent with a buyer in your building type sees it, every portal pushes it to people watching your neighbourhood, and every serious buyer notices it's new. After that window closes, a listing starts to look stale, even if nothing about the unit has changed. Buyers start to wonder what's wrong with it. That's the real cost of pricing too high on day one. It's not that you'll never sell. It's that you'll sell later, for less, after burning the one moment when the most eyes were actually on your listing.
What "motivated" actually changes
If you genuinely need to sell, on a timeline, for a job, a life change, or because the carrying costs have stopped making sense, that changes the entire pricing conversation. A motivated seller who prices to today's market moves faster and nets more than one who prices to hope and chases the market down with three price cuts over four months. The second seller isn't more patient. They're just more expensive to sell, once you count the extra weeks of fees, mortgage payments, and the stigma a stale listing picks up.
The psychology nobody talks about
Here's the part sellers don't like hearing. Your unit is not competing against its potential. It's competing against three other listings in your building or the one next door, priced by owners who did their homework. Buyers comparison shop. They tour your unit, then the one down the hall, then decide based on which one felt like the better deal that week. Pricing accurately isn't giving up leverage. It's the thing that actually gets you multiple showings in week one, which is the only real leverage a seller has left in this market.
If you're thinking about listing and want a straight read on what your specific building is actually closing at, that's the first conversation worth having, before a number goes on the listing.