[davio]

My take is that the appraiser is simply protecting the bank from making a giant mistake. They'll prevent a 100K house for getting a 200k loan. Our previous house sold for 330K when most of the previous sales had been 250-300 for the neighborhood. We even had a comp of the exact same floorplan/elevation at 275. Our agent thought we would probably find buyers at the higher listing price, but didn't know if the house would appraise without any comps in the ballpark.

The low price attracting a bidding war doesn't really work in our market. My brother had something like a dozen showings and half that many offers on listing day, but only got a couple thousand over list. My house had 4 offers, but everyone stuck to their initial numbers when we asked for best and final offers.

Since the market has been hot, there is a stigma of "something must be wrong with that house" if it's been on the market 90+ days. Our strategy has been to price at the top of the comps and reduce quickly if we're not getting good leads.