Selling when there are fewer buyers

Every seller in a slow market asks the same question, and it is the wrong one. The question is not "how much do I come down by". It is "why is the person who would have bought this not coming to see it".

The first two weeks decide the next four months

A listing gets its largest audience in the fortnight after it goes live, because that is when it reaches everyone already looking rather than only the people who start looking afterwards. Price it to be seen in that fortnight and the market tells you the truth quickly. Price it to leave room and you spend the room anyway, just slower and from a weaker position.

What actually moves things

• Photographs taken in the right light. Not more photographs. The right ones, at the right hour, of the rooms that are the reason to buy.
• An honest floor area. Overstated square footage does not win viewings, it loses offers at the survey.
• Availability. A property that can only be seen on Tuesdays is a property that will be seen by whoever is free on Tuesdays.
• An answer to the obvious objection. Every property has one. Ground floor, busy road, no parking. Say it first, with what it is worth in exchange.

On reducing

If you are going to reduce, reduce once and meaningfully. Three cuts of two percent tell the market you are still coming down, and everybody waits for the fourth.

The part nobody enjoys hearing

A property that has been listed for five months at the wrong price is now competing with its own history. Withdrawing it and returning properly prepared is sometimes worth more than another reduction.

What is currently listed is the honest comparison - not what sold two years ago.