Reducing by £5 EA suggestion

[Chanel05]

My house has been on the market for 10 weeks. It's priced at an exact _00,000s figure.

A house about 5 doors away had their buyer fall through 2 weeks ago but have managed to sell theirs for the asking price at 25k more within those 2 weeks. Our houses are extremely similar. Both ex council and internal decor very similar too.

Our EA has suggested reducing to _99,995 (£5 reduction) in the hope of "opening up to a whole new market of buyers and should in this competitive market make the sale happen". Would this strategy be madness? DH thinks we should just come off the market completely for a few months.

Do you have a link?

For the sake of 5k yes I'd reduce. Given the current lay of the land, coming off the market might ensure you make even less money.

I'd rather not post the link as this I haven't name changed.

Not 5k - £5 😂.
For example, if my property was market at £800,000, they're suggesting reducing it to £799,995.

honestly I don’t think it will make a difference and buyers will see reduced in x date and realise it was a fiver and think you’re idiots

"opening up to a whole new market of buyers and should in this competitive market make the sale happen"

This makes no sense. If a buyer has their filters set to max 800,000 or whatever, they'll still see the property whether it's 800,000 or 799,995.

What's £5, you may as well try. Frankly, I hope people see through it. Were there pictures better?

I think its to bring you down to the next rightmove bracket. So if say £300k was someone's starting point, going to £295 could expose your house to more people on the site.

Yeah, this.

That's my concern - that it just looks like a ridiculous thing to do!

We share the same EA @ACynicalDad so the picture quality is the same

Is 10 weeks a long time?

@Mydogatemypurse the market seems very quiet in my area. My house is either an investment opportunity or ideal for ftb and I don't think the climate is helping. Short answer is - no clue!

The thing is, some people will have alerts set up to show reductions and it will look a bit odd.

I’d look at the listing first. Have you had many viewers?

@SheWoreYellow we had 5 separate viewings, the last taking place just before Christmas.

We had an offer 10% under asking price but the house had only been on the market 5 days. The same person then suggested to the EA they would offer up to 10k lower than our asking price. We said that we would be interested in this, however no further reductions would be negotiated down the line. The viewer then never chose to offer this and the EA concluded that they would have changed it further on down the line.

Talk to the estate agent about what the other house has yours doesn't. Parking was our issue. Identical house, different drive/garden set up was N facing causing the issues. You may or may not be able to change things.
But £5 reduction won't make any difference.
A house at 800,000 will appear in searches that specify 800,00 as a maximum and a minimum.
Houses at 799,995 will only occur in searches under 800,000.

@CatOnTheChair good idea. Thanks. I've emailed them asking just this. We're both on the same side of the road with south facing gardens. My front drive is larger and I have a bathroom upstairs and downstairs, where as they have the one and it is just downstairs. They have kitchen and front room as open plan and mine is separate. Pros and cons to both!

Your estate agent is clueless about online house sales. A property priced at £300k or £299,995 with be featured for everyone looking up to £300k so zero difference. However, if someone is looking £300-£350k it won't feature at all if priced under £300k AND the £300k property will be at the top of the search.

Just seen that you would have accepted an offer 10% lower, in which case, reduce the price by that or very close to it. people will be notified of the price reduction and 10% is enough, but it might fall into a new price bracket and come under someone's radar who dismissed it as too expensive before Christmas.

The EA's suggestion doesn't make sense regarding the banding (as some have suggested). If you look at Rightmove and search for a property you sent a min and max figure. The max figures are round numbers (e.g 300k) whether it's set at 300,000 or 299,995 then both would show up in a search. I would actually ask him to explain - in front of a web site - as to why £5 makes a difference. Plus I think you'd look silly for a 5 quid reduction!

£10k, not 10% I think?

Ridiculous. This would really turn me off my EA tbh as it's a silly suggestion.

@londonagent @SheWoreYellow yes, we'd have accepted 10k under, not 10% under.

EA have got back to me to say that the only difference in the houses is that the other one has a completely paved drive and theirs is open plan. I've asked to be promoted to the featured property again before committing to anything further and this has now been actioned.

Thanks for all of the advice! I'll update if the featured property move generates any viewings for us over the weekend.

It's the same logic as pricing something in a shop for £3.99 instead of £4.00. It makes it look cheaper therefore more attractive. Unless you know how it works and automatically mentally round up.
It might work with someone who hasn't come across it before, either the tactic or the property.

Did the other people use a different estate agent? I would consider moving agents once you're out of contract. The other thing that could have made theirs more enticing is if they had no onward chain?

I would read this as telling me you only really want to sell at asking price and won’t entertain lower offers. So if I was borderline about it/thought I might want to make a slightly lower offer I’d be less likely to view.

If someone lists a bigger reduction then I think “Ok they do want to sell” and start wondering about what they might accept. But also wonder why it wasn’t selling (although less so in current climate!).

If the other house is listed with the same agent then why didn’t they show your house to the buyers at the same time if your house is comparable and 25k cheaper? The agent needs to answer why the other house sold quickly and yours hasn’t had as much attention

Personal experience: our EA did this in October (we had been on since early August) and we got our buyer a few days later. No clue if it was because of that but who knows. Felt like we had nothing to lose.