Sold data on seven properties over $3M in one metro shows an average of 214 days on market

214 is roughly right for a thin market, and seven sales is thin but not meaningless. The bigger issue is that DOM at that price point gets gamed constantly, listings get pulled and relisted to reset the clock, so the real number is often worse than what you see in MLS data.

The renovation versus pricing question is almost impossible to untangle from seven comps. In my experience watching deals around $1.5M to $2M, the ones that moved fast were priced fast, not necessarily the prettiest.

Your four out of seven reduction rate is actually the more interesting number to me. That is a seller psychology problem as much as a market problem at that price.

The renovated one probably just had a tighter spread between list and sale, which you can verify in about ten minutes by pulling original list price as a percentage of final sale for all seven. The thing that bites people in that bracket is carrying cost psychology. Sellers above 3M often have the liquidity to sit, so they sit, and that patience inflates days on market without ever forcing a real price discovery moment. Properties that sit 300 plus days before the owner finally moves tend to take a larger haircut than they would have taken by cutting in month two.

Your sample is fine for a sanity check, but seven deals over 18 months tells you more about your specific metro than about luxury markets in general. GPs on Dallas deals above $3M commonly quote 180 to 220 days as the underwriting assumption before the acquisition even closes. The price reduction figure is the more interesting number. Four out of seven reducing means sellers are still anchoring to 2021 and 2022 comps and brokers are not pushing back hard enough at listing time.

Seven is thin but the renovation vs pricing question is the one I'd chase first.

In some metros the $3M plus listings that actually closed sat closer to 290 days before any cut.

Seven properties is not nothing but it is not enough to separate the renovation variable from the pricing variable, and that distinction matters a lot if you ever move up market. I had a note that went sideways on a $2.8M single family in Scottsdale around 2021, borrower sat on the listing 190 days, took two cuts totaling $380k, and the eventual buyer still negotiated another $95k off the final ask. The property had been updated maybe four years prior and still bled out. What killed it was the original list price was set by ego, not comps, and the renovation gave the seller false confidence that the number was defensible. The days on market number itself is almost irrelevant above $3M because the buyer pool is so thin that one motivated buyer showing up on day 190 versus day 30 is just luck.

Sellers at that price point almost never cut early enough for it to matter.