The single most important thing to get right to sell your house fast is the asking price. Almost every property will attract attention from buyers if the price is right so if you aren’t even getting many viewings, it could be a sign that buyers think your asking price is too high for the size and type of property compared to others in your area.

What Is The Right Asking Price To Sell A Property?

The right asking price is a price somewhere between the lowest price you will accept and the highest price someone is willing to pay.

Most people don’t want to wait years to find that elusive buyer who is interested in their house and willing to pay more than a property is worth compared to others in the area any more than anyone wants to sell their homes for less than people are willing to pay (unless there is a non monetary benefit in doing so).

The right asking price is the highest price people are willing pay, in the timescale you want. It is the price you accept knowing no one could have done more to promote your property and no one would have paid any more for your property. It is the price that enables you after your estate agent has done everything in their power to squeeze the most from the market.

What Happens If A Property Is Priced Too Low

Someone will snap up a bargain and the property will sell fast however the seller may feel ‘seller’s regret’ if they feel circumstances forced them to sell their home for substantially less than they believe it should have achieved – especially when they have unrealistic expectations of the ‘should‘ price.

Generally, the strength and length of regret is proportionate to the disparity between the ‘should’ and ‘actual’ achievements so it is essential for people’s long term peace of mind to have realistic expectations when selling a property, to choose the best way to sell a house in the time frame available and to market the property to as many people possible.

What Happens If A Property Is Priced Too High

If a property is priced too high for its size and location, it will significantly reduce the number of people wanting to view it. All estate agents use the initial interest in a property to gauge the estimated valuations and will lower the price until the market responds with more interest.

The bigger the over estimation in property value, the longer it takes to find the correct value and to sell the property.

Setting The Real Value

The real value of a property is NOT set by experts or expectations, it is set by public opinion and the amount people are willing to pay. To estimate or predict what that will be, you need to look at historical data and market conditions.

Seek Expert Advice

Sellers often rely on estate agents to advise them of their property value. Unfortunately because most sellers choose the agent with the highest valuation, it is in their interests to over estimate and reduce the price as necessary over the course of months.

To ensure you get the most from experts, ask them to justify their reasoning with examples of similar properties in the area that have sold at the price they give.

If something seems too good to be true (like assurances that your property is going to sell for more than other similar properties in the same area or that it will sell fast at the same price as similar properties that have been on the market for months or even years), it probably isn’t true.

Become The Expert

With the event of the internet it’s never been easier to become an expert. Property portals like RightMove and Zoopla now provide everyone with access to the same information estate agents use to make their predictions (valuations).

Consider your own needs – do you prefer to wait for the highest price or reduce the price slightly to ensure a fast sale without regrets?

Be prepared. Do your own research – look at similar properties in the same area, what price they sold at and how long they took to sell.

 
Researching Recent Sales In Your Area

The start of any DIY valuation should be recent sales of similar property in the same postcode.
If there aren’t any recent sales in your street, you can look slightly further afield but you will need to take the difference in the areas into account. Take note of how long a property was advertised before it was marked as Sold Subject To Contracts (SSTC) and look for online tools so that you can track changes in the asking price.

Small cosmetic differences or slightly better/worse spec such as a marginally bigger/smaller garden should be noted and they should certainly affect negotiating powers but they are may not add significant value to a property.

The main physical aspects that significantly affect a property’s value are:

• the number of bedrooms
• the property type (detached, terraced, bugalow etc)
• the neighbourhood and proximity to amenities
• the size of the overall footprint inc gardens
• parking space/restrictions
• the property market conditions
• sole access

Alternatively, you can of course look at slightly older sales in your street together with information about whether property value has gone up or down since the sales, though bear in mind that they are made up of averages that might include a property that sold for considerably more than others because the seller was happy to wait more than 12 months for a sale rather than lower their asking price to secure a sale within 3 – 6 months so it is not as accurate as looking at recent sales for similar property in your immediate area.

What We Do

At National Residential, we always start our process working out a REALISTIC sales price with our sellers – i.e. a price based on online research and talking to our team of local estate agents in the area to see what similar properties in the same neighbourhood have sold for in the last 3 months.

Unlike estate agents with long lock-in periods (12 – 20 weeks) who are happy to happy to list properties with an unrealistic asking price (to secure representation) knowing they can suggest lowering them if there is no interest, we only list properties in our auctions with a realistic reserve price (set by sellers) that we think we can achieve because we pay for the EPC certificate and legal pack whether a property sells or not* and all our sales are NO SALE, NO FEE.

Like most auctions, the starting bid is often below the reserve price (which is generally no more than 10% in excess of the starting bid) to test the market, gauge buyer interest AND make sure the property is seen by as many people with budgets over or ‘close-to’ the reserve price as possible.

NB. There are important differences between our auctions and anyone else’s (added solely for the benefit of the seller). We know from customer feedback that many of our very happy clients were initially worried about the prospect of selling their house by auction because they mistakenly thought all auctions are the same. The headline difference between ours and other people’s auctions is what we do in the background to help bidders stay interested (e.g. we don’t just answer questions, we engage and support bidders throughout the process) and the added choices sellers have to choose the BEST option.

If you have any hesitation whatsoever, please take a look at our guide National Residential Auctions and remember if we cannot meet your reserve, you have nothing to pay so it really is risk free.

Our 28 day schedule is set so that it is short enough to make sure people realise make their serious decisions sooner than later and long enough to know any person actively looking for property in the area will see the listing and have time to make enquiries/view the property before the auction ends (assuming most active buyers check Rightmove at least once a week for new properties).

By attracting as much interest as possible; using a convenient, user friendly, transparent bidding system that is open to everyone regardless of their finance options; and supporting buyers throughout the processes; we are confident that no other company could get a better price for your property.

Plus it is a prerequisite that all our buyers are committed enough to the sale to pay a deposit to secure the sale so as well getting the best price possible, the sale is far less likely to collapse.

We think our pricing strategy is the intelligent way to sell houses and our confidence is supported by the results our strategy achieves but we also invite you to take a look at our ‘Sold Properties’ page to judge the results for yourself.

 
To talk to National Residential about how we would price your property, please use our Call Back form and tell us the postcode of the property you want to sell. We will call you back ASAP in office hours to discuss the best strategy to sell your house in a timescale to suit you. It’s not a problem if you disagree and we will not put you under any pressure to proceed.

Please feel free to research a selling price before you contact us and we will tell you if we think it is realistic and whether we believe we can sell it for you at that price within 28 days.