In the real estate brokerage field they’re known as “setups” or “pinball” homes, and this spring’s improving conditions in some markets might be stimulating more of them.
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A setup or pinball property is a house listed with an unrealistically high asking price that is visited by lots of agents and shoppers but that attracts no offers. The problem is this: Real estate agents, including even the listing agent, are using the overpriced house as a negative example to bounce buyers over to similar homes nearby that carry lower asking prices.
“It’s like a pinball machine,” says Debbie Cook, an agent with Long & Foster Real Estate in Silver Spring. The “setup” is the foil — the house that agents show clients in order to make other, more realistically priced listings look better. Maybe the sellers, encouraged by reports of rising sales and low mortgage rates, insisted on the aggressive asking price and wouldn’t list for anything less. Or maybe the sellers’ agent didn’t fully brief them about what the house could command in today’s conditions rather than lose the listing.
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