Sometimes the market gives very clear signals… and people still choose not to listen.
Recently, I listed a property for a figure which, honestly, I believed was reasonable. I even spoke to several experienced people in the industry beforehand and they agreed the asking price seemed fair.
The property launched. The photos looked great. Enquiries came in quickly. Viewings were busy.
At first, everything looked promising.
But then reality started speaking.
The offers were consistently coming in around £20,000 below the asking price.
Not one. Not two. Almost everybody saw the value in the same range.
A couple of weeks later, I sat down with the seller and explained the situation honestly:
“The market is telling us something. Buyers like the property, but they are not willing to pay this figure.”
The seller disagreed.
A family member of theirs, who is a successful developer, was convinced the property would achieve the full asking price and advised them not to reduce.
So the seller held firm.
An offer around £480,000 came in. Rejected.
A week later, a cash buyer offered around £470,000. Rejected again.
Then something changed.
The momentum disappeared.
No more calls. No more viewing requests. No more competition.
The property slowly became “old stock” in the eyes of buyers.
Eventually, the seller became nervous and agreed to reduce the asking price slightly.
But by then, the energy had already gone.
Weeks later, the seller decided to accept the earlier £480,000 offer.
Too late.
The buyer had already found another property.
Then, after more silence, the seller agreed to go back to the cash buyer who had offered around £470,000.
Again… too late.
That buyer had moved on as well and now would only consider buying at a much lower figure as an investment opportunity.
In the end, the property sold for significantly less than the original offers that had been rejected.
And this is the painful part:
The market was never hiding the answer.
The buyers told us the value from the very beginning.
Sometimes sellers think: “If I just wait long enough, somebody will eventually pay my number.”
And sometimes that works — especially for wealthy investors or developers who are under no pressure to sell and can afford to wait months or years.
But ordinary sellers are often in very different situations.
They may need to move. They may need the equity. They may already have another purchase lined up. They may not have unlimited time.
In those situations, chasing an unrealistic price can become very expensive.
This is something many people misunderstand about property:
The market does not care what we need a property to be worth.
It only cares what buyers are prepared to pay today.
Pricing correctly from the start is not about “giving a property away.”
It is about understanding timing, momentum, psychology and buyer behaviour.
Because sometimes waiting for an extra £20,000… can eventually cost you far more than £20,000.