In short
Base your asking price on what similar homes nearby have actually sold for (not what they’re advertised at), adjust for your property’s particular features, and look at what else buyers can choose from right now. Then set a price that attracts interest in the first few weeks – that’s when a property gets the most attention.
The asking price is probably the most important decision you’ll make when selling. Get it right and you’ll attract interest, viewings and, often, competing offers. Get it wrong and your home can sit on the market for months.
Start with sold prices, not asking prices
What other sellers are asking tells you what they hope to get. What homes have actually sold for tells you what buyers are prepared to pay.
Sold prices are public – you can look them up on HM Land Registry’s price paid data, or on the property portals. The most useful comparisons are:
- similar properties – type, size, condition and plot;
- in the same street or area;
- sold recently, ideally within the last year or so.
A good agent will do this research for you and show you the evidence behind their figure.
Then adjust for your property
No two homes are identical. Things that can push the price up or down include:
- condition, and whether a kitchen or bathroom needs updating;
- garden size and aspect, parking and garages;
- views, and the position within the street or village;
- character features – or, for some buyers, the lack of them;
- anything unusual: land, outbuildings, an annexe, a listed building, a right of way or a flooding history.
Look at the competition
Buyers compare your home with everything else they could buy for the same money. Look at what’s currently for sale in your price range – and be honest about how yours measures up.
Think about price brackets
Buyers search the portals within price brackets – up to £250,000, up to £300,000 and so on. A home priced at £305,000 won’t appear to someone searching “up to £300,000”, so a small change can put your property in front of far more buyers. Stamp duty thresholds can have a similar effect.
Guide price, offers over or fixed price?
- Offers in excess of can encourage interest where you expect competition.
- Guide price suggests a range and a little flexibility.
- A plain asking price is the most common, and perfectly fine for most homes.
Why overpricing usually backfires
It’s tempting to “start high and see”. The problem is that a property gets most of its attention in the first few weeks on the market. If it’s overpriced, buyers skip past it, it goes stale, and you end up reducing the price – often to below what you’d have achieved by pricing it right in the first place.
From experience
Over many years, we’ve found that realistic pricing almost always achieves the best result – not just the quickest sale, but often the best price, because it creates competition. An honest figure at the start is worth far more than a flattering one.
Get more than one opinion
It’s sensible to invite two or three agents to value your property. Ask each of them to explain how they reached their figure, and be wary of any valuation that’s well above the others without good evidence to support it.