Is intense demand in the first week or two?

[Toooldnowx]

As a seller, should I expect the greatest demand or interest in my property to be in the first week or two?

Should I start getting concerned if the number of viewings or offers do not come in the first week or two?

Personally I would. We sold ours recently in less than a week, as have those on our street. I'm also a Rightmove junkie and have noticed that those that don't go within a week or so hang around for ages and end up dropping the price more and more. Best thing to do is price it realistically.

Is it because those who are looking to buy would have the alerts and would be searching on an almost daily basis? If many of them aren’t interested then that would be a signal? I don’t know what the size of new lookers or those thinking outside the box might be.

Serious buyers will have alerts. If nothing happens early on, you’ll just get less frequent viewings from people who gave only just started looking or the ‘thinking outside the box’ types.

When looking I was on it every hour in case something suitable came up, such is the competition for the good stuff!

Agree. At the moment round here you can only view if you’ve sold your own/are proceedable and that means huge interest as soon as anything goes live.

Schooling reopening might affect the level of interest in the early part of September in England. Although serious buyers who are keen would have alerts and would be looking out for new listings as the good houses go quickly.

8 viewings this week, with 1 of this yesterday. 1 offer 10% below my asking price. 1 person is coming back with their builder on Tuesday. There is another viewing tomorrow.

I hoping the returnee on Tuesday isn’t going to do a low ball offer. There is work to be done because the property is tired. Is bringing a builder a signal that the person might be expecting a big discount off the price?

I will see what this week’s viewings are but if the first week is the strongest and the first offer is so low I may need to rethink soon.

Estate agents have a saying that your first offer is often your best offer.

I've bought a builder with me in a viewing. Simply so I can get a good idea of the actual costs involved rather than trying to guesstimate.

As it happened, they spotted things that I didn't think were overly an issue, but actually had significant cost implications for what I wanted to do. I then based my offer on the structural work needed.

Our first offer was our best and 30k more than we would get now (a year ago compared to today). We didn’t take it as it was almost 10% under and thought we should get more. We were wrong!

@tildaturnip I thought it was a myth .

With that many viewings and one low offer, I’d expect that your house is overpriced.

We found our house was over priced despite the agent assuring us it was not. As soon as we could, we took it back off the market and haven’t gone back on due to change in circumstances. I think if we had been given a more realistic valuation (and generally had chosen better agents), that first offer would have been seen in a better light.