How Long until my home sells?

I'm going to start this topic off being completely honest …… I hate the question, I really do. It’s not because I don’t know, as NOBODY knows for sure and if they tell you they do, you need to run a mile. No, I hate this question as it really is such a variable answer to each and everyone. Regardless, if you have two identical properties next to each other like for like, it is still highly likely they will take different amounts of time to sell.

We recently gave a listing presentation to a potential client - This was a rather out of the blue presentation by the way. Honestly, completely flukey and we were so in disbelief how it came about that we had an elaborate safety plan to make sure I was not about to be kidnapped - But that’s a whole different blog!

In this interesting presentation the client asked us “In the current market, how long will it take for my property to sell?’” In which we could only respond in the following way:

“Based on the sold units in your building that are like for like, we can estimate X amount of time”

Now although this question CANNOT be answered with 100% accuracy. It’s still possible to place a rough, and I cannot repeat the word ‘rough’ enough here, estimate. 

For example, with the above presentation, we looked at the building itself. We were lucky here, in fact a few other 2 Bedroom, 2 Bathroom units had sold in the past couple of months and they were fairly similar to our subject property. We noticed they had sold after being on the market for an average of 115 Days (just shy of 4 months). So naturally our suggestion to our client was to plan for around this amount of time on market. Of course, we cannot guarantee this length of time, it could be shorter, it could be longer.

But on top of that, everyone has a different approach to market. Just because your neighbour was on for 6 months does not mean you will be. What if they started at $75,000 above market value? Then they reduced further but were still $25,0000 above market value for another 2 months? It does not make sense if you were to come on market straight at market value, you would have to wait as long?

Vice versa applies as well, if you want to test a high premium and are expecting the same timeline as your accurately priced neighbour, unless you’re hitting a lucky spell you could have a nasty surprise in store.

So although this number cannot be determined exactly, if you take the average of the most comparable sold properties, you can find an average time on market which should shed a little bit of light on the unknown. Of course, making adjustments for being over or underpriced of course. It’s important to remember this is IN NO WAY a guarantee of time on market.

This isn’t a question which comes up all the time, however it’s one constantly on the mind of sellers out there. Make sure to ask your agent to work this number out for you if you’re looking for some extra insight. It’s something we personally include in ALL of our presentations.

Oh and in case you were worried, that risky listing presentation mentioned above happened earlier today so I made it out safe. Turns out they were a lovely group of people in a beautiful home. Phew…….

Until next week!

Jay Mcinnes
T: 604.771.4606
jay@mcinnesmarketing.com

Ben Robinson
T: 604.353.8523
ben@mcinnesmarketing.com
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