For most people, selling a home can be an emotional experience. Even though a house is just a physical structure, it feels like more than that. It’s where your kids took their first steps or where you celebrated holidays.

But when it comes to pricing your home for sale, it is necessary that you cut emotions. Otherwise, you may make the mistake of overpricing your home for the market, and that is a mistake hard to recover from.

Here’s what happens if you price your home based on emotion rather than on data:

1. You get overlooked. Remember, in real estate, homes sell for what buyers will pay. If you overprice, you put yourself in a price bracket with homes that are more expensive and, usually, much nicer. Why would a buyer pick yours?

2. You help sell the competition. Along the lines of being overlooked, when you overprice, you do the competition a huge favor. Suddenly their properties look like a great value compared to your overpriced home.

3. You’re on the market longer. You’ll be waiting, frustrated, without buyer interest when your home is overpriced. During this waiting period, you are trying to keep your home in showing condition, possibly still paying a mortgage and wasting time.

4. You have to wait to move. Selling your home, usually, means the opportunity to buy a new one. But with no buyer interest, everything has to be put on hold.

5. You eventually lower your price. Problem is, when you do finally lower it, because of its time on the market, you’ll look desperate. Buyers will know your home hasn’t been selling, and that makes them leery. Plus, it gives them much more negotiating power.

That’s why it makes sense to price your home for the market, not for your dreams. Otherwise, you run the risk of paying the biggest price yourself: sitting with an unsold home.