MD of Belvoir Shrewsbury, Paul Wallace-Tarry writes:
You want the best price for your property – don’t we all!? But what is the best price – what is it worth? Is it worth what an estate agent says (with or without the inflated uplift to win the business)? What a surveyor says? What a mortgage provider says? Or is it what you think? Is it £/sq ft? Is it the location, the condition, the view? Or a derivative of what your neighbours achieved for their sale just last year, or what you paid for yours 10 years ago.
The Real Answer Is…
Well, it’s all of that and that’s why the only real answer is “it’s what someone will pay for it”. And at the moment that will probably be a little less than you think or hope!
The predictable reality is that house price values increase in Spring, as surely as Spring follows Winter! But why? The situation is changing however, buyers are more savvy and all the resources available to estate agents to value a property are now also available to every buyer, through the internet, so they are questioning “why the 5% – 10% uplift in Spring just because the daffodils are blooming?”
Pricing a Property Accurately
There is convincing evidence that pricing a property accurately will help you achieve the price you want – whereas over pricing will actually increase the risk of achieving a lower price – see How To Price A Property Correctly (Sunday Times April 2017)
“Buyers these days are price sensitive, however if they feel things are incorrectly priced they won’t bid”. Also, “As a rule, vendors will sell more quickly and make more money by achieving 99% of a fair asking price rather than 90% of an unrealistic one.”
Your Property Will Sell!
Why don’t we stop playing around with increasing the price of properties because the sun is shining, or adding 5%, just to come down by 5%! Let’s start pricing properties at what they are actually worth, as this will mean that potential buyers will visit your property and make a realistic offer and, of course, if there is more than one offer, perhaps it might produce a bidding contest and you actually achieve more than you expected. More importantly, it will mean your property will sell and you can move on!
