“Mixed Message but a Clear Strategy”

Over recent months the headlines have been littered with reports about the current state of the property market. However anyone following the reports closely will notice that they all appear to contradict one another. Some state that properties are falling and others suggest that there will be rise. This is of course also due to conflicting material being released from different surveys and different media sources.

One would think that the property market would be very easy to measure, but it’s not, because firstly the market moves so quickly and is so fickle that as soon as one report, based on last months figures comes out, this months figures show a different perspective altogether. A prime example of this is a re-tweet I did yesterday about prices falling by 1.3% in December according to Halifax, but figures released by Rightmove showed a slight increase over the same period of 0.4%.

According to a recent Land Registry report is suggest that house prices have decreased by 0.8%. This may be a reflection of poor trading conditions over the spring and summer during election year, followed by the immediate withdrawal of the Home Information Pack, which fueled supply, especially from ‘speculative sellers’. Although we found that transactions were up by 12% on the same period last year and this is still 29% below the long-term norm.

In contrast Rightmove, the property portal who advertise over a million properties nationally, showed a rise of 0.4% in December, despite sellers dropping their prices by an average of just under £7,000. This is of course based on asking prices, not sales achieved, which is a very important distinction. This may account for why asking prices have risen – sellers are aiming to accommodate a low offer by increasing their asking price.

However, by inflating an asking price and assuming that a low offer will follow, is just another way of overpricing a property. Overpriced properties in our experience simply don’t sell. Buyers don’t even make offers on overpriced properties because they don’t view them in the first place, because on they can see that they do not compare well with other properties being advertised. We feel that the task of a skilled estate agent is to first of all ensure that a property is positioned well in the market, so that buyers are attracted to it, and secondly to negotiate a figure as close to the asking price as possible.

Therefore it follows that an attractive, well-researched asking price is the key to selling your property at a time when others are simply too expensive for the current conditions. When some properties are struggling to compete, other accurately priced properties will be the ones that sell.

If you would like more information about any of our services then visit our website or call us and we will make sure that your property is positioned correctly in the market place.