You're misunderstanding what I'm saying. A relator LISTS the house at a substantially higher price because they (as a whole) understand that people will always "lowball" for a better deal, so they simply incorporate the mean/average to what that undervalued price might be. When I say "loftier check" I mean based on their evaluations bringing back a bigger check for the sale. (They're not listing the property with a 2% increase over market value, they're doing it by 25%...because, no one tells them they can't. There is ZERO regulation towards the entire 'relator" industry) Example, your house was valued at $200K this past year (by the city/county assessor in your area...as that's all they fucking do. It's their job to value homes based on other homes sold in the area, and permits you submitted to improve your own home) as well as the value on file when the home was first listed .. which was based off permits needed at that time). A relator comes to your door and tells you "hey buddy, if you list with me I'm sure I can get you $250K for your house today ! You're market is ripe for buyers and if you're looking to move NOW is the time to do it" The relator understands that , because of the area, average listing time/time it takes to sell , and other factors that determine if an area is "hot" or not (school system, distance to shopping, restaurants, police stations etc etc) that if he gets you to list with him he'll put your home up for sale around $285K. Then when buyers come in with their offers.....he knows the majority of people who'll come see it will "lowball" the offer by 10% -15% ...then he'll satisfy the owners whom he promised $250K to and he'll have earned a commission of between 6-7% or roughly $14K for that one sale. The sale goes through, the county/city assessor looks at the home selling for 42K more than it's valuation last year and adjusts the taxes to penalize the new homeowners for buying such an expensive home. In addition, because their neighbors now benefit from their property values "going up" they get hit with a larger property tax next year. When lots of people leave an area property values drop (in theory) when hordes of people move to a specific area ...those property values go up by more. While they call it "supply and demand" it's just manipulated maneuvering. The Governments (city/state/county) all desire more people as more people = more tax dollars. They don't give a shit as to who or how "more" people get there, which is a huge issue with "new developments" going up in these cookie cutter multi-building apartment complexes. Go to ANY city larger than say 40K in the U.S. and I promise you that over the last 4 years land was developed for at least 1 of these. In the cities by me no less than 5 went up during that time. That's 5 complexes with 4-6 buildings...in every direction of me. N, NW, W, SW, S, SE, and E all less than 30 miles and every single one of those areas has built those ugly fucking things. oh, new construction developments like this are BLACK HOLES for property taxes. It's partly why renting has increased (outlandishly) too. Nothing to do with availability or demand (which illegal immigration and now war driven migration drives up that demand too....but that's just another element to it) it's because these "new buildings" drastically increase the property values for the entire city. It's a huge tax on those people.