CONTENT:
1. Introduction
2. Tips to reduce the time to sell a property
2.1. Pre-prepare the house for the market situation
2.2. Provide as much information as possible
2.3. Do not treat all properties the same
3. How long it takes to sell a property: average by province
1. Introduction
Despite the fact that the real estate sector is in good shape, putting a property on the market does not mean that in a matter of hours or days, it will be sold. The time it takes to sell a property depends on many factors.
It is for this reason that a good estate agent must be concerned with ensuring that the property stays listed and advertised for as little time as possible and the process of finding the ideal tenant is a short one. How can we reduce the time to sell a property?
2. Tips to reduce the time it takes to sell a property
2.1. Pre-prepare the house for the market situation
One of the biggest “time-wasters” and drawbacks when selling a property is that from the outset the home does not go on sale in optimal market conditions to make it competitive.
As professionals, we must advise sellers as much as possible on the value of the home and be up to date with the latest developments and movements in the sector so that the starting price is final.
In many cases the owners get carried away by a fever to obtain the maximum benefit and offer a sale price that is well above what can be considered as realistic. The price therefore creates a barrier that prevents the house, which might have interested buyers, from being sold in the appropriate time.
This issue ensures that, after a futile period, the value must finally be reduced, with the agents losing valuable time in-between visits and adverts etc.
2.2. Provides as much information as possible
It is common for estate agents to leave brief messages in a newspaper indicating what they are selling and leaving a contact number for those interested in obtaining the rest of the information. However this means that many calls / visits to the agency are unproductive for such simple matters that can be overcome by expanding on the information that the user was missing.
For this reason, when advertising a property for sale, we should not settle for a standard description: the more informative elements we include, the greater impact we can have.
Today we have the possibility of creating image galleries as well as videos and even the fresh possibility of recreating a virtual tour of the property for sale, where not only do you see each space in the house but, in addition, the feeling of exploring it is recreated completely. One can discover the distribution and condition of each room and its lighting, etc.
2.3. Do not treat all properties the same
It is common to have processes that determine how quickly you sell a property in terms of advertisment: how to make it visible from the get-go, which sites to upload it to, where to advertise it … which are all processes that must be controlled and that allow the visibility of each house for sale to increase.
Despite the fact that it is vital that this process is carried out, we should also avoid considering a house “which can sell itself” in the same way as one whose characteristics or whose price is not attractive enough to sell instantly.
Perhaps it is not within the commercial interests of the agency or the capability of the software they use to provide all properties with a video and detailed image galleries. But it would be effective to add these specific elements to less popular properties or those that need more information. In this sense, a virtual 360º tour is the most effective response.
3. How long it takes to sell a property: average by province
We already know how we can reduce the time to sell a property, but what average figures do we face depending on where we live?
As a general rule, it takes less time to sell a property in large cities than in small or rural towns. Thus, if we focus on data from the Spanish real estate market, the general average is 6 months after the “for sale” poster is hung up, a period that reduces to 4.5 months in urban centres close to one million (Valencia, Seville, Bilbao) and much more drastically in large capitals.
In the case of Madrid, the average is around 3 months, while in Barcelona, according to Vanguard data, high demand produces sales in just 38 days.
But beware: we are not just talking about average times but also about average procedures. The vast majority of homeowners who take advantage of these low periods of market exposure do so because they have professional help, support and tools. Does your agency have all the means to do this?
