Editor – As a real estate educator, I give advice to clients, students and professional advisers on making good real estate choices.

My recommendation is for advisers and the media to be more direct and less accommodating on the topic of selling a home in today’s market. ("For a quick sale, make your home stand out," Jan. 20.)

Selling a home is 90 percent pricing and 10 percent marketing (staging, advertising, broker tours, etc.).

A buyer will not pay more for a property than it is worth because of marketing. In fact, great marketing will quickly kill an overpriced listing. But a home properly priced will sell.

Pricing solves all shortcomings and issues. Sellers today should consider setting price based on current pending and sold listing data, and much less on active and expired listing data.

Serious sellers price their home to sell. Sellers who are not serious about pricing strategy should stay out of the market and reduce the clutter of listings. The opportunity for learning from today’s real estate market is that – without exception – all asset classes (including real estate) are cyclical. Remembering this should help families and individuals make better choices in the future.

RICH ARZAGA

Instructor, UC Berkeley,

UC Santa Cruz