The worst property selling mistake you can ever make

Com­mon sense may make you think that if a prop­erty does not sell, there must be some­thing terribly wrong with it, right?

Well that is a true state­ment to a point.

In a strong mar­ket that homes are selling, there must be some­thing ter­ribly wrong with a home that doesn’t sell.

But opposed to pop­u­lar belief, it’s not always loc­a­tion or con­di­tion of a property.

The 1# one reason why a nor­mally attract­ive home does not sell is not that there is termite damage or pil­lar dam­age.

It is actu­ally the per­cep­tion that it has these prob­lems by hav­ing too many days on the mar­ket.

Enquir­ies dra­mat­ic­ally drop off if the home exceeds the aver­age days on mar­ket.

We see this every week in real estate.

This is a well known fact in our industry.

In fact if you’re tak­ing a list­ing from an agent that has done poor mar­ket­ing or a bad pri­cing strategy.

The old trick is to take it off the mar­ket for let’s say two weeks we call this “giv­ing the prop­erty a rest” and then put­ting it back on the mar­ket with new pho­tos and a new price.

Buy­ers will start to think it is a new prop­erty, and you’ll start get­ting new hot enquiry on it once again.

We call this Days On Mar­ket or D.O.M.

Too many days on mar­ket ulti­mately come down to 2 things;

1. Not being mar­keted cor­rectly and lis­ted on all the prop­erty portals. This includes really bad pho­tos which I see all the time by cheap agents or by own­ers want­ing to do it them­selves and don’t think it’s important.
2. Lack of price being dis­played on advert­ising can turn off buy­ers  (when you do this people think you want to much for the prop­erty) or for a price dis­played let’s say “Offers Over” too high to appoint where the major­ity of buy­ers say to them­selves “I’m not going to bother to enquire as there is bet­ter value on the mar­ket right now for that price”

I can under­stand that you want the best pos­sible price for your home and list­ing it at a higher price will get you a bet­ter price but just think of your­self in the buy­ers men­tal­ity. 

This is the key to get a higher price for your prop­erty. 

The worst thing you can do is list at a higher price and start com­ing down in price as the weeks and months go by.

If you look at any prop­erty investor magazine they have huge amounts of data and one of the key indic­at­ors is vendor discounting.

One of the other key indic­at­ors of a des­per­ate vendor, which is another data set in these invest­ment prop­erty magazines.

This is how smart prop­erty investors look for good deals to find des­per­ate vendors that have been on the mar­ket way too long and major discounting.

This screams des­per­ate vendor/sellers and investors get excited when they find one.

In fact, they have spe­cial soft­ware that col­lects data from all over Aus­tralia and you can set it up for a par­tic­u­lar area and find the per­cent­age of dis­count prop­er­ties and set how many days on mar­ket you want.

Then they’ll pin­point you and start using strategies to get your prop­erty at a base­ment bar­gain price. 

Sellers may have the per­cep­tion that keep­ing their prop­erty on the mar­ket for longer will get a bet­ter sale price.

This may be true in some mar­kets but def­in­itely not true in and around seven Hills.

You may be think­ing “I don’t need to sell right now I can wait around for a bet­ter price” this actu­ally dam­ages your chance of get­ting a bet­ter price and can ulti­mately pres­sure you to take a lower price as it gets closer to your mov­ing date.

You see investors start watch­ing, wait­ing and circ­ling their kill like vul­tures until the pressure/motivation is on you to sell in a hurry.

You may be think­ing “I wouldn’t let that hap­pen” but I have seen many times where emo­tion over­takes logic.

Per­haps a sick grand­mother is involved, or a divorced couple is really get­ting sick of each other, and that’s where mis­takes are made.

How to avoid this too many days on mar­ket and selling too low.

First you need a bet­ter than good agent that is for sure.

This kind of agent is a seasoned vet­eran and has seen this a mil­lion times over and has a strategy to com­bat this to get the best pos­sible price.

They will help you sell quickly and make buy­ers climb over them­selves try­ing to out­bid each other for your prop­erty.

We use the “Offers Over strategy” for most prop­er­ties which has at this time of the mar­ket buy­ers queuing from around the corner (not kidding).

Going back to what causes too many days on the mar­ket once you are con­fid­ent that your prop­erty is going to be mar­keted cor­rectly, and the agent can show you data of all the hits and reviews on your prop­erty  there is only one thing that would be stop­ping buy­ers not enquir­ing, and it is usu­ally the advert­ised price of the prop­erty.

Notice how I said “advert­ised” that’s right, it is just the advert­ised price, not the selling price that you want.

“The Price Is Right” it’s not just a game show it is an advert­ising tool to get you the best price!