"It reminds me of my realtor who would put houses on the market extremely underpriced generate huge amounts of interest." Different situation. Pricing the IPO

"It reminds me of my realtor who would put houses on the market extremely underpriced generate huge amounts of interest." Different situation. Pricing the IPO lower (as others have pointed out) would bring less money to facebook. And of course in the case of real estate there is no obligation to sell even if someone offers the asking price or even over the asking price.