Avoid excuses!
Demand and sales volumes have improved significantly in Napier. We’d expect this strength to eventually help steady prices. Still you may notice there are some properties that aren’t selling. Why is this?
The mail reason is the price. Some sellers don’t realise that the price a buyer is willing to pay is based on the value they perceive. Unfortunately, if the price is wrong a seller could end up thousands of dollars worse off .
Rather than face this reality (the price is wrong) sellers (and to their shame some agents) prefer to rely on five common excuses to explain why their property is not selling. Here they are (so you can avoid them):
First Excuse: PHOTOS. “The photos of our home are not good enough.” Photos don’t sell a property. There’s strong evidence to suggest that the better the photo, the less likely the buyers will buy. Why? Either buyers don’t visit because of something they see in a photo; or the photos make the property look better than it really is – and then when the buyer sees the reality they’re disappointed.
Second Excuse: MORE ADVERTISING. “You need to pay for newspaper advertising.” Don’t pay hundreds of dollars for advertisements that lasts no more than a few days. Internet placements deliver much better value. If your property is for sale, at the right price, buyers will find it.
Third Excuse: OPEN INSPECTIONS. “You need to open your house”. You don’t need hordes of unqualified strangers wandering through your home. Every hour an agent wastes at an open home is an hour the agent could spend productively searching enquiry logs, card boxes, computer lists and other good sources where the right buyers are found.
Forth Excuse: WRONG TIME. “It’s not a good time to sell”. Some agents shut down, but the market never shuts down. Ask any of the hard-working and sensible agents and they’ll often tell you sales are always being made.
Fifth Excuse: WRONG AGENT. “If your property is not selling, there can only be two reasons: the price is too high or the agent is no good.” It’s easy to blame the agent and label them incompetent, especially when other agents are saying if they’d had your property for sale, it would be sold by now. Yes, some agents are better than others, especially when it comes to negotiating the best price for you. Changing agents usually only leads to a sale when the price is changed too.
These days, buyers are much more savvy than they used to be. In the digital age, buyers can get information that tells them what to pay. They can look at the price of every property that has sold in your street. In an instant, they can see every property for sale in your area. If your price is too high, the buyers will know it in seconds.
Please don’t get caught with ‘delay damage’. The general rule is, the longer your property is on the market for sale the lower the price you will get. Avoid the excuses and face the reality of adjusting your price.
