Recent listing and contract numbers point to a tighter pricing window than usual.
If you are asking how precise your price needs to be before listing, my answer is very precise. Recent numbers in Amherst County, VA show active homes around $307,450, pending homes at $299,900, and closed homes at $282,550, so the market is giving you a narrow lane to hit cleanly.
Recent pricing in Amherst County, VA lines up this way active homes at $307,450, pending homes at $299,900, newly pending homes at $319,900, and closed homes at $282,550. That is enough evidence for me to treat pricing as a sequencing problem, not a guess.
For sellers, I would read that as a warning against picking a number in isolation. Buyers are clearly engaging at certain levels, and the closing line is not identical to the listing line. In Amherst County, VA, a seller's market still exists, but that does not remove the need to position a home where the market will actually respond.
Start with your closest competition, then test against pending and closed prices. Decide in advance how much room you want for negotiation. Do not rely on a later price cut to create demand.
