What happens if my house is priced too high?

How buyers actually shop

Buyers search by price band, so the price decides which group of people see the property and what they compare it against.

A house priced above what buyers in that band will pay is still shown to them, alongside everything else at the same money. The buyer who would have looked at it on its own terms is often searching in the band below and does not see it at all.

The listing date

A listing carries a date that anyone can see, and later buyers will ask about it. Nothing removes that date once a campaign has run, which is why the opening price carries more weight than any change made afterwards.

The photographs are also only new once. The buyers already searching see the property when it first appears, and after that the enquiry comes from whoever enters the market from that point on.

Changing the price

A price change has to be large enough to move the property into a different search band, or the only people who see it again are the ones who already passed on it. A small adjustment inside the same band changes the number on the listing without changing who is shown it.

The other route is to change the method. Moving to an auction or a deadline takes the number off the listing and asks buyers to arrive at their own, which is a different campaign rather than a smaller version of the same one.

Setting it so this does not happen

Price off settled sales of comparable properties, not off what you need, what you paid, or the highest figure anyone quoted you. Rule 10.2 of the Client Care Rules requires a written appraisal to be supported by comparable information on sales of similar land in similar locations, so ask to see the sales.

Where there is no directly comparable or semi comparable sales data, rule 10.3 requires the licensee to explain that to you in writing. Thin evidence is worth knowing about before a number goes on the listing rather than after.

If the evidence is genuinely unclear, a method that does not carry a price, such as auction or a deadline, lets the market answer the question instead of settling it in advance.