Most property sellers have to drop their asking prices to achieve a sale, a property group said on Tuesday.
"And the average drop is around 12 percent, which means that most sellers are quite seriously out of step with what buyers are actually willing or able to pay," the Chas Everitt International property group said in a statement.
Berry Everitt, CEO said such sellers usually argued that prospective buyers were quite at liberty to make lower offers.
"The fact is that serious buyers will usually not make any offer at all on a home they consider to be overpriced, especially if there are many properties on the market for them to choose from."
Everitt said others would shy away from making a lower offer because they did not want to offend the seller, even if they really liked the property.
"And sellers need to face up to the fact that buyers usually know the market better than they do... sellers may look at a few homes before listing theirs for sale, but buyers have frequently looked at dozens of homes over a few weeks or months by the time they decide to make an offer."
Everitt said if a home was not attracting any interest after a couple of weeks on the market, the seller should consider lowering the price as soon as possible.
"Sellers who do this when the listing is relatively new and the home still fresh in potential buyers' minds stand a good chance of keeping the marketing momentum going."
Those who did not would inevitably end up with an unsold property that was "about as attractive to buyers as last week's bread". - Sapa
Issued by Chas Everitt International
For further information call
Berry Everitt on
011 801 2500 or visit
www.chaseveritt.com