Time on market with their original estate agent = 3 months
Time on market with The Personal Property Shop = 2 weeks
Asking price achieved? = £10,000 above asking price
The owners of this relatively new property in Newhall, Harlow were planning on emigrating to New Zealand. They put their home on the market with a low cost estate agent in Harlow that they thought would sell their home successfully for them. Properties in Newhall don’t usually hang around long, especially not one as beautifully presented as this one – yet this one had sat on the market for 3 whole months with just 3 viewings and unsurprisingly no offers either. This property should definitely have sold far quicker!
The home owner’s complaint was that they felt their estate agent wasn’t communicating with them and they often rang their office and got no answer. They also felt they should have had far more viewings than they’d had and time was running out before they were moving to New Zealand and needed to get the property sold as soon as possible.
What did The Personal Property Shop do?
The first step we always take is to do a free of charge, no obligation consultation where we analyse the existing marketing by the current estate agent, assess the presentation of the property and unpick why the property hasn’t sold to date. These were our findings:
- Home staging – the property was very tidy and neutral but perhaps needed a little more colour and a few homely touches. We arranged for our home stager Amanda to visit the couple. She spent 2 hours with them, talking them through the improvements they could make in each room that would help the property to sell. A few small touches and the difference was incredible.
- Photography – the quality of their current estate agent’s photos were fairly average. They weren’t disastrous but they could have been a lot better and they weren’t showing the property off at its best. We arranged for our professional photographer to photograph the property who improved the photos tenfold.
- Pricing strategy – the property was on the market for £399,950 which meant it was missing buyers searching from £400,000 upwards. By rounding the price according to Rightmove’s price bands you can as much as double your viewings as far more people see your listing and this results in far more viewings.
The result
The property sold in under 2 weeks for £10,000 above the asking price! The couple are now settled in in their new home in New Zealand and thrilled that their home sold so quickly and for a good price too.
The moral of this story?
Presentation is key. Choose an estate agent that prides themselves in using professional property photography, will help you present your home in a way that adds value and one that communicates well. You get what you pay for and a low cost agent means you’ll often get a low quality service too! Our fees are about average for most estate agents in Bishop’s stortford, we’re not ‘expensive’ but we’re not a budget estate agent either. That way we can provide the highest quality of service to all our clients.