I was the first resident to move into my Condo at the Reservoir Lofts complex in Cambridge, MA in May 2008 when I purchased Unit 302 with my wife. I’ve been a huge fan of Zillow over the years, and so recently the idea popped in my head to take advantage of their ’Make Me Move’ concept, and list my property.

If you’re not familiar with ‘Make Me Move’, here’s Zillow’s explanation:

Make Me Move is a free and easy way to tell others the price you’d be willing to sell your home for, without actually putting it on the market. It’s the “dream price” you might accept if someone offered you that price.

Great! Sounds wonderful! My property was recently appraised at $475k this past year during a refinance, so I decided to list Unit 302 at a Make Me Move Price of $500,000 - a tidy profit over the appraised value.

Now here’s where things start to get weird. A few weeks back I received a phone call and voicemail from a realtor, asking when she could take a tour of my property, and what my flexibility was on moving.

This was followed up today by a fellow resident in my complex saying that they heard I was selling, and had a friend interested.

Now, after I received the first call from a realtor, I decided to remove my phone number from the listing and only left the email contact form. I haven’t heard from any other realtors.

The question I’m left with is: Is Zillow doing a poor job of explaining or differentiating ‘Make Me Move’ listings from standard listings? Or are users (including realtors) just ignoring the differentiation, and assuming everything listed on Zillow is on the same playing field as far as the market goes?

Trust me, I Love the concept of Always Be Closing, and I’m happy to seriously sell and move if the right offer comes along. I’m concerned, however, that I’ll continue dealing with buyers who are comparing my listing to others on the market and want to bargain me down in price. That is Not what I’m interested in - wasting my time racing to the bottom. I’m not desperate to sell, I’m not even looking to sell, which is what to me is attractive about the concept of Make Me Move.