If you are trying to sell your property but unrealistically ramp up the asking price, concluding its eventual sale is likely to take longer than ever.
That is the conclusion of some research reported by the Daily Mail on the 17th of September.
Of course, any vendor wants to achieve the best possible price when selling their property. But if you put an unrealistic price on it, intending to lower it if needs be, you could be waiting up to two months longer to sell it than if you had asked a more realistic price in the first place.
The extent of the delay emerged in research which classified a property as “overpriced” if the sellers had had to lower the price at least once before completing the sale, and as “accurately” valued if it sold for the original asking price.
A particular example cited in the research mentioned a property in Blackburn, Lancashire, where the average price of a house is £117,500 and which remains on the market for an average of 70 days before it is sold.
But that average is skewed by the fact that although an accurately valued house is on the market for only 27 days, an attempt to make an overpriced sale took as long as three months – an added delay of some 64 days or around two months.
The lesson is clear, therefore. If you want to sell your property with the minimum delay, make sure the asking price reflects its accurate value rather than advertising an unrealistic price which has to be lowered as time goes on.
