How To Get Your Asking Price Right

When selling your home, two things are important: getting it sold and not letting it go for cheap! 

This is why your asking price is so important. Set it too high and your property won’t attract enough buyers. Conversely, if you set it too low, you’ll attract lots of offers but you will always be wondering whether you could you have achieved more. 

There are numerous factors when determining the true value of your home. This includes, but isn’t limited to, the location, size, number of bedrooms, garden, parking and condition.  

In a recent survey, the most common reason given for wanting to move home was the desire for more outdoor space (33% of respondents) followed by the desire for more indoor space (27%), primarily driven from the need to work and learn from home for many people.  

I have done some research using Zoopla tools available to agents, and found that in the Wellingborough area, there were 150 houses for sale and almost a third had reduced their price. 

Why Does This Happening? 

There are a huge values when valuing a property and no agent is perfect. Mistakes can be made, especially if the property is unique. Simply, some houses are more difficult to value than others, but if there is a similar neighbouring property that has recently sold, there’s little excuse to get it wrong! 

Here’s a few of my thoughts on why over-valuing can happen: 

An Agent Not From The Area 

If an agent is covering a large patch and isn’t completely familiar with your area, they can often make mistakes. Sometimes even neighbouring roads can have different values for the same ‘type’ of property! 

Encompassing a large region may mean they have a lack of expert experience in your local market. 

An Over Eager Agent  

In order to gain your business, some agents will suggest a price that is much higher than they can realistically achieve and will back this up by saying ‘we have people queueing around the block for this type of house!’ 

What often happens with these less than honourable agents is that they will promise you a high sale price, they will get very few (if any!) viewings in the first couple of weeks then call you to drop the price to something more realistic. 

What To Do Next

HOMEWORK!! Not what most people expect to have to do, but it will put you in good stead and is pretty straight forward. 

Firstly, go to Rightmove or Zoopla and search for properties that have the same number of bedrooms as yours and also share the build type (detached, semi-detached, terraced, flat, etc) within ¼ to ½ of a mile of your postcode. This will give you an idea of what kind of figure you could list yours for. 

Then invite three REPUTABLE agents to value your home. These should have a good rating on Google and Facebook, be recommended by friends or family and ideally have sold properties in your area fairly recently.  

This will put you in good stead and hopefully get you moving sooner rather than later!  When selling your home, two things are important: getting it sold and not letting it go for cheap! 

This is why your asking price is so important. Set it too high and your property won’t attract enough buyers. Conversely, if you set it too low, you’ll attract lots of offers but you will always be wondering whether you could you have achieved more. 

There are numerous factors when determining the true value of your home. This includes, but isn’t limited to, the location, size, number of bedrooms, garden, parking and condition.  

In a recent survey, the most common reason given for wanting to move home was the desire for more outdoor space (33% of respondents) followed by the desire for more indoor space (27%), primarily driven from the need to work and learn from home for many people.  

I have done some research using Zoopla tools available to agents, and found that in the Wellingborough area, there were 150 houses for sale and almost a third had reduced their price. 

Why Does This Happening? 

There are a huge values when valuing a property and no agent is perfect. Mistakes can be made, especially if the property is unique. Simply, some houses are more difficult to value than others, but if there is a similar neighbouring property that has recently sold, there’s little excuse to get it wrong! 

Here’s a few of my thoughts on why over-valuing can happen: 

An Agent Not From The Area 

If an agent is covering a large patch and isn’t completely familiar with your area, they can often make mistakes. Sometimes even neighbouring roads can have different values for the same ‘type’ of property! 

Encompassing a large region may mean they have a lack of expert experience in your local market. 

An Over Eager Agent  

In order to gain your business, some agents will suggest a price that is much higher than they can realistically achieve and will back this up by saying ‘we have people queueing around the block for this type of house!’ 

What often happens with these less than honourable agents is that they will promise you a high sale price, they will get very few (if any!) viewings in the first couple of weeks then call you to drop the price to something more realistic. 

What To Do Next

HOMEWORK!! Not what most people expect to have to do, but it will put you in good stead and is pretty straight forward. 

Firstly, go to Rightmove or Zoopla and search for properties that have the same number of bedrooms as yours and also share the build type (detached, semi-detached, terraced, flat, etc) within ¼ to ½ of a mile of your postcode. This will give you an idea of what kind of figure you could list yours for. 

Then invite three REPUTABLE agents to value your home. These should have a good rating on Google and Facebook, be recommended by friends or family and ideally have sold properties in your area fairly recently.  

This will put you in good stead and hopefully get you moving sooner rather than later!