“I wish I could sell my property without everyone knowing”
The traditional way of selling a property usually involves having to send it as far and wide as possible to make sure we have given your property the maximum exposure in order to help you find a buyer and, more importantly, achieve the best price.
But not everyone likes the idea of that.
We have found that a big reason why people delay moving or selling a property is because they don’t want to see their property advertised to the general public.
So, we have created a different method to help.
Are you thinking of selling your property? Or perhaps you have already committed and are about to go live on the open market?
There are two main reasons why this method will work for you:
We call it our ‘Soft Launch’.
We’ll explain how it works. Have a read of this first before your property goes onto Rightmove and other websites.
When we put our property on the market for sale, it can feel kind of final. You need to have the strategy right from the off and get the pricing right before you launch to the market. There’s almost no margin for error or opportunity for change without it costing you thousands of pounds.
But what if there is a way to test the market without jeopardising your chance of a sale?
As you are no doubt already aware, there is never an exact price for a property. There is no crystal ball or guarantee that you will achieve a set price. Your valuation estimates are just that, an estimate. An opinion on what the agent thinks they will be able to sell your property for, based on the market conditions at the time, supply and demand, and comparisons with other properties that have sold recently.
Years ago, it was pretty common practice to test the marketing price of a property. To put a property on the market at a price that might be a little keen and see what happens. If it sells, great. If it doesn’t, no worries, you tried. Sellers would know that the price they hoped to achieve was too high, and they would then feel comfortable with a lower figure.
Sadly, this isn’t the case anymore. Why?
Because of the information and data available to buyers searching for a property. When a property is listed online, there is a history attached. Buyers can see when you initially listed the property and at what price. There is an algorithm to consider, which was never an issue previously.
Once you put your property on the market, there is no real way to alter the pricing or the strategy other than a reduction. The buyers will not support a sudden increase in the marketing price. If you don’t receive interest or viewing enquiries within the first 4-6 weeks, you will likely find that interest dwindles, and you’ll have to consider a price reduction to boost the interest again.
Unfortunately, if you spend those initial four weeks at a price that is a little high, the resulting price reduction will ultimately result in an end sale price that is lower than you could have achieved otherwise.
It can be very damaging to your sale if you ‘over-cook’ the marketing price at the point of launch to the market. The first four weeks are when your property will get the most publicity and promotion across the social media platforms of your estate agency, their mail outs to their database of buyers and the property portal websites. If you spend those valuable weeks at a price that is a little too high, you will waste them.
There is no need to worry about testing the market while prices rose post-pandemic. When the market increases, you will either sell for higher than your marketing price because the demand is so high, or your property may take a little longer to sell, but the market will eventually meet your pricing.
But when the market is unpredictable and a little harder to read, you might want to test the market rather than commit to a pricing strategy. And now there is a way…
It is possible to promote a new property on the market discretely, showcasing the property without using social media, property portal websites or for-sale boards. This way, you can get a feeling of the buyers’ appetite in the market without broadcasting your price. You won’t have to tell your friends and family about your plans to sell until you are sure the pricing strategy is correct, and you can prevent those nosey neighbours from snooping around and judging your marketing.
We simply create your property details, as we would do normally, but rather than hard launching it to the open market, we simply advertise it to our list of ‘VIBs’ – our very important buyers.
Our VIBs is an exclusive list of people who have asked to be on this special list because they are actively looking to buy a house. Our database has over 10,000 people on it and we normally have an active list of around 1000 buyers who are looking at our properties all the time.
Our clever system allows us to see which buyers have taken an interest in your property and it gives us the opportunity to gather feedback that you usually wouldn’t receive until someone had viewed your property.
With photos, floorplans, videos and descriptions, our potential buyers can very quickly paint a picture of your property and to allow them to make a decision on whether they are interested in viewing or at the very least, give us a feedback as to why it is not for them.
If the soft launch of your property to the market doesn’t get the response we wanted, there’s no harm done. We can make changes as we get feedback.
It might be, that we gather enough viewings and offers that you don’t need to openly market your property.
Failing that, if you are feeling more confident, you can simply adjust the strategy and launch to the wider open market with an adjusted price and adjusted marketing details.
This way, you will launch fully to the market at a more accurate price and won’t have wasted those all-important initial four weeks of premium marketing trying to test that your pricing is correct.
Either way, you have had a chance to discreetly market your property without everyone knowing and if you decide to open advertise the property then you can do it with the full confidence that the marketing is correct and the price is correct.
If you are interested in testing the market with a soft launch to ensure your property’s marketing price is correct, contact our property experts today.
