How Long will It take To Sell? What's Realistic?

If you’re making plans that will involve selling a property, start with a realistic timeframe.  There’s also a lot you can do to make it quicker while still getting a great result! 

Let’s get into it -

The Market Statistic

First the official answer….drum roll please - 

The median days to sell in Wellington was 40 days in April, 11% higher than the 10-year average for April of 36 days. 

In plain English:

• It takes about 6 weeks to sell a property (5 weeks and 5 days)

• Being a median, half are taking less than 6 weeks to sell and half are taking longer

• Properties are taking overall 11% longer to sell, which is just 4 days!

Planning Rule of Thumb

Whether an up or down market, or a sellers or buyers market, we’ve always said to clients they should allow 5-7 weeks to do it properly.   If it’s faster great!  BUT you also want the best result and not just any result…right?

Why? You want the right buyers, you want the best price, and you need realistic contingency.

Our last 2 sales took on average 4 ½ weeks (fastest was 3 weeks and slowest 6 weeks).  Our 4 sales before took an average just over 3 weeks to sell. 

Selling Faster

Here’s 4 easy ways you can sell faster while protecting your result:

1.   Market More – having more buyers involved speeds up the sale process up for you considerably.  Make sure you’re investing in smart marketing that gets your property noticed more and reaches further…you can’t sell a secret!

2.   Prepare Your Property - saleability, appeal to buyers and your price can all be massively improved by how you prepare and present your property.  There’s always some things you can do and it needn’t cost much.  Get practical ‘know-how’ advice from an expert not just someone who wants to rush you onto the market.  This step will pay big dividends.

3.   Don’t Do The Same Week Over - it amazes us when we see another property sitting on the market that nothing changes as the weeks go by – same photos, same heading, same text, no marketing method change…and guess what?  Same non-result.  A property marketing campaign must be dynamic, being constantly monitored and adjusted for market feedback to get engage the right buyers in sufficient quantity to get to sold.  THIS is never more critical than in today’s market where sellers are competing with other sellers for buyers attention and interest.  If you want to assure success, make sure you’re working with an agent who’s worked different types of markets successfully and not just hot seller markets where it’s easy.  This is a buyers market and it will be for a long time. 

4.   Dream Big But Make Your Decisions Using Real-Time Price Information

In real estate, there’s a truism that ‘when a property is presented well, marketed properly and priced in the right corridor…it always sells’. 

After 15 years selling real estate, selling over 400 homes, this is critical for sellers:

1. Start with a Realistic & Conservative Appraisal – in listing your property you need work be working with a realistic idea on price, supported by actual comparison sales.  As property owners, we’re all a bit biased when it comes to our own property and what we think it’s worth.  Realising this upfront, being sceptical of any agents with high appraisals without sales data backing it up, and starting with a reasonable estimate saves time and disappointment. 
   

2. Obtain and Listen to Market Feedback – make sure your agent will be talking in detail with every visitor and getting you real-time feedback, including price feedback,  on how the market is responding to your property.  One person’s opinion on expected price doesn’t mean anything really. However, when 40-60 buyers have given their opinion on expected price…well they just can’t all be wrong!
   

3. Work with Market Information Not Emotions – The harsh reality is that the market doesn’t factor into the value of your property whether you’re buying in an expensive Auckland suburb next, personal debt situations, or the trip you’d like to take.  Too often sellers taking a very long time to sell either don’t know where the real market value is for their property, or they are unwilling to accept this reality, usually more the former than latter.  If you know you’re prone to being a bit unrealistic make sure you’re not also working with an agent who also is and who won’t tell you the honest truth otherwise you’re in for a long trip to nowhere.

It's Up To You!

Finally, the result you achieve and the market appraisal are rarely the same number:

• You can do better than ‘market average’ on any measure – including price and time to sell.

• It's also important to understand that the longer a property is sitting on the
  

• market, the more likely it is that it will sell below its true market price. 

For a chat about the market or advice to help you drop us an email or give us a call on 0275180008.  We’d love to hear from you and help!