Date Published 27 April 2017
SECRET AGENT OR TOWN CRIER?
With the property press full of stories highlighting recent low transaction volumes, there has been a tendency among potential sellers to offer their house on an off-market basis only and hide its availability from the wider market. Conversations are had with a few (or even more) local agents with the promise of whispering in a few carefully chosen ears to bring you a buyer at a huge price and a reduced fee.
On the face of it, this is very appealing. You don't have your house on the open market for the world to see, you don't have to keep it permanently tidy because they may want to bring that one special buyer on a moment's notice and you don't run the risk of the house not selling and becoming stale.
However, with Easter Holidays well out of the way, the weather turned, gardens looking fabulous and Spring in the air, the better advice is to market the hell out of it to ensure you get the maximum amount of buyers through the door and the highest offers the market will pay. Agents want to promote your home as much as they can. We want to raise its profile so it stands head and shoulders above everybody else's with a beacon flashing above it to attract as many punters as possible. The portals like Rightmove and OnTheMarket, our own websites, social media, the property glossies – all these can be used effectively to get you the outcome you want and give you the chance to move on to whatever / wherever you are moving on to.
There are no doubt many committed buyers looking right now, but with such little stock on the market, they can't find what they want. There are some sellers who want their house to join the CIA and be marketed by a ‘Secret Agent' when really, the time of year calls for the strategy of shouting from the rooftops.
The brave and the bold are the ones who will benefit from this market and the Secret Agents will never match the Town Crier!
