How to price a home so it actually sells

Price is not an opinion

The most common sentence I hear at a first meeting is: “Let's ask more, we can always come down.” It sounds safe. In practice it is the most expensive decision a seller can make.

The reason is simple. The first two weeks of a listing are the only period when your home is seen at once by everyone who has already been searching for months. They know the market better than most sellers, because they have been to dozens of viewings and seen what goes for what. If the price is too high for that audience, they do not come back. They do not argue and they do not make a low offer — they simply scroll on.

Three months later, when the price finally comes down, that first wave is long gone. What is left is a smaller audience looking at a property that has been on the market a long time. And a property that has been on the market a long time raises one question in every buyer: what is wrong with it?

A high asking price does not give you room to negotiate. It takes away the buyers you would negotiate with.

Where the real number comes from

Asking prices on the portals are not the market. They are hopes. The market is what someone actually paid, with a signature under it at the notary.

When I set a price, I look at three things:

Completed transactions. Recent sales in your area of properties with a similar floor area, floor and condition. The Land Board's transactions database is public and anyone can look at it.
The current competition. What is on the market alongside you today, and what the buyer is genuinely choosing between. If there are three similar apartments in the building next door, they price yours, whether you like it or not.
What has failed to sell. The most instructive part. Properties that have been up for six months show exactly where the ceiling runs.

Those three give you a range. Not one number — a range, with the reasoning for what moves it up and what moves it down.

Search filters decide who even sees your listing

A buyer does not browse everything. They set an upper limit in the filter and look only at what fits inside it. Those limits are round numbers: 150 000, 200 000, 250 000.

If your apartment is priced at 203 000, it disappears from the view of everyone whose ceiling is 200 000. Those are exactly the people who would have ended up offering 198 000. For the sake of three thousand euros you lose a whole group of buyers. There is no cheaper way to slow your own sale down.

The two weeks that tell you everything

I do not hold an opinion about whether the price is right — I measure it. The numbers from the first two weeks give you the answer, and they are worth reading like this:

Few listing views. The first photo or the price is not tempting anyone to click. The problem is the presentation or the starting number.
Many views, few calls. The photos promise more than the price justifies. The buyer looks with interest and decides it is not worth it.
Viewings but no offers. At that price the property is weaker than the competition. The reason is usually specific, and you hear it at the viewings.
Offers arrive in the same range, below the asking price. That is the market price. The market is speaking to you in plain language.

If two weeks have passed and nothing is moving, there is no point in waiting. Waiting does not improve the price, it only ages the listing.

If you change the price, change it once and properly

Coming down a thousand at a time is the worst option. Every small step tells the buyer the seller still has further to fall — and then they wait for the next one. That is how you end up with nobody making an offer, because everybody is waiting.

One clear step that moves the property into the next search bracket brings a new audience. Two thousand off brings nobody.

When a bolder number is justified

There are situations where a higher price works. The property is genuinely rare for the area. You are under no time pressure and can calmly wait for the one buyer this particular house suits. Or it is something with no sensible basis for comparison.

The difference is that in those cases there is a plan for what happens in three weeks if it does not work. Strategy and hope look the same in a spreadsheet, but they end differently.

What this means for you

The right price is not the lowest price. It is the number at which more than one interested buyer appears at the same time — because only then does the price start moving in your favour. Two serious buyers do more work for you than any negotiating tactic.

My average so far is 45 days from listing to deal. Almost every time that has stretched out, the reason has been the same: we started from a number that was only ever meant as an experiment.

If you want to know where your home stands in this picture, let's talk. The valuation is free, and I will tell you honestly if now is not the time to sell at all.