OP, ill share my current experience on this exact subject. My home is currently in escrow and scheduled to close in 2 weeks. My agent listed the house on the low end of estimates in hopes of a quick and clean process of multiple bidders. The house was on the market for 1 week with 4 open houses. We had many people tour over that 7 days and interested buyers were instructed to submit a sealed bid by the end of the week. We had 7 bidders and the agent put them on a spread sheet comparing offers, terms, qualifications etc. We selected 4 of the bids within 48 hours of the offers and had each party submit a revised and final offer. One party sent me letters and on line connections, another bid a clause to meet the top offer plus $10K, and the others simply raised their price. We chose a couple who appeared to be the best suited financially and who visited the house on all 4 open house dates. Finally they offered to let me remain in the homes for a month after closing for $1. Overall, the final price was 107% of asking price. While I was somewhat skeptical of this process, the agent convinced me that starting with a low offering price and creating a bid scenario was the best approach. They were right in that strategy. Now, if we only had 1 bidder I would have felt differently.
Just to share another learning, we have live security cameras in our house. I was a bit worried about opening my house to the public. So, we posted a sign as people came over that the property was under video surveillance. If something went missing we had a video of the showings. Well worth the investment in this technology.
