The most influential factor in selling a home is always price.

In the bazaars of brick and breath, a hard bell tolls: “The most influential factor in selling a home is always price. Don’t build wiggle room into the asking price. There’s a price war out there and you must win it from the get-go.” Hear the austerity and mercy hidden in these words. They strip the velvet from the transaction and reveal its spine: value, made plain. In a world of polished listings and scented candles, the elder’s counsel is flint against illusion—set the price true, or you will wander in a desert of showings without a buyer.

The ancients understood this arithmetic of desire. Merchants at the city gate learned to meet the market’s pulse without vanity. A bowl of figs priced for the king will rot before sunset; a bowl priced for the pilgrim will be eaten and remembered. So with houses: the light through a kitchen window may charm, the garden may preach serenity, yet the first argument the buyer hears is the asking price. If it is honest and sharp, it opens the door; if padded with wiggle room, it insults the hour and sends the traveler onward.

“Price war” is no idle phrase. In every neighborhood, neighboring roofs are standards on a battlefield: square footage against square footage, condition against condition, closings against dreams. To pretend otherwise is to fight in silk slippers. The wise seller girds for the get-go—studies comparable sales, trims illusions, and sets a number that speaks like a clear trumpet: “We mean to move.” This is not cruelty; it is clarity, the first kindness to both buyer and seller.

Consider a parable from a colder century: the Dutch tulip mania. When the price broke from the flower’s worth and took flight on vanity, fortunes evaporated in a single winter wind. The lesson is not that beauty should be cheap, but that price unmoored from value becomes a fever. In quieter times, a baker’s wife in Antwerp sold her shop swiftly by listing at the honest center of the street’s recent closings; her neighbor, demanding a parade for his nostalgia, lingered month after month, paying taxes to his daydream. Markets reward the one who honors reality first.

There is also the discipline of mercy toward oneself. A home is not only beams and shingles; it is birthdays and lullabies distilled into walls. That tenderness tempts us to add a private tithe to the asking price—a surcharge for our memories. But buyers cannot purchase our yesterdays. The seller who forsakes wiggle room chooses to love the past without charging the future for it. In doing so, they free the house to become someone else’s sanctuary—swiftly, cleanly, at a price that invites a yes.

Let the teaching be hammered into the ledger of your plans. If price is the “most influential factor,” then let it be set by evidence, not hope. Stage the rooms, yes; polish the brass; write the lyrical description—but remember that all these are choristers, not the cantor. When the number is right, the chorus lifts; when it is wrong, their song cannot save you. To enter a price war late is to bleed twice; to win it at the get-go is to spare everyone the slow cruelty of false starts.

Rites for the road: (1) Gather three truest comparables and anchor your asking price within their narrow band; emotion does not get a vote. (2) Price to the market you have, not the market you miss—seek the swift, not the flattering. (3) Launch with strength: immaculate photos, immediate availability, and a number that makes a serious buyer lean forward. (4) After seven days without offers, adjust—do not “wait for the right person” while paying for time. (5) Remember: refusing wiggle room is not surrender; it is strategy. Thus will you honor the house you’re leaving, the buyer you’re meeting, and the future you are funding—with a price that speaks truth and brings the deal home.