The Mystery of Selling Your Home, Part I: Pricing

It's still a buyer's market. While there are multiple offers happening in Seattle, the average market time in NW Seattle (a hot market) the last 3 months was 38 days.
What makes one home sell fast, and the other languish? It's part science, part art, and part timing.
The science: pricing your home
The homes that sell fast seem under priced. They are also in hot locations. Or both. Or, they look really cool and are well-priced. What you can control is not the location, but the price and how cool it is.
Let's talk tough about price. There's no looking back to what your home was worth in 06-07. It wasn't a realistic price then, and it isn't now. It was inflated by the easy money flowing into the system.
I research price by looking at what buyers see: the assessed value, the Zestimate, what their agent sees as the new Realist tax data range, and the eppraisal (an appraisal website) price. Then I look at comps. Then I knock off another 5%, unless there's been a remodel since the assessed value was calculated, maybe (depending on the good taste of the remodel).
Knocking off another 5% is in order to beat the market. The national trend is that we're still in a declining market. Also true in Seattle: we're down 8.9% since last year according to Zillow stats.
"But wait," you say, "won't I lose more money by knocking that much off of the price to start? Can't I test the market?" The short answer is: no. Your home will be hot. A hot home has more interested buyers out of the gate and therefore fewer inspection items. It is not sitting on the market having its price reduced by big chunks every month, only to have a buyer lowball (they see market time), and then ask for thousands during an inspection. It does not have endless carrying costs and the unending psychological drain of an unsold listing (ah, the pricelessness of peace of mind).
Next: "Case study: an overpriced home lost 85K"