Selling in a reasonable timeframe is every genuine vendor’s aim, second only to selling for the best possible price. Yet most agents say that the hardest sale to make is the one that comes along in the first days of marketing.
Understanding the listing to sold cycle that every property moves through prior to taking your property to market is crucial to achieving the highest possible price in the shortest possible timeframe.
When a property is first offered to market, all the purchasers that have been looking for their ideal home for weeks and months eagerly converge. This is the peak marketing period. Vendors will likely see the highest numbers of enquiries, inspections and offers during this time. Seeing this competition places pressure on buyers to make their best move, fast!
This period not only provides a greater quantity of buyers, but also higher quality buyers. These are the qualified purchasers – the ones who have done their homework and know exactly what they want and what their money will buy. These buyers may have already missed out on other properties, and the fear of missing out on another adds further pressure to outbid the competition.
There is a common misconception that if a fantastic offer is received first, subsequent offers will increase as time goes on. Unfortunately, the opposite is true.
The longer a property stays on the market at a particular price, the lower the perceived market value. Buyer quality and competition fades and there is no longer the fear of running out of time or missing out on the property to another buyer. This often results in lower offers, negotiating smaller increases and taking longer to negotiate an agreeable price.
In the final analysis, the vendors’ two main aims are not separable. They are two sides of the same coin. Selling for the highest price usually means getting serious about that earlier offer. Vendors who fall victim to First Offer Syndrome often regret their earlier refusal to negotiate when they discover that further down the track they end up selling for less.