By Michael McHale
How do you make a tissue dance? You put a little "Boogie" in it.
As with jokes, a fundamental concept in property selling is timing the sale to match when the buyers are ready to buy.
Timing the Sale: When Are Property Buyers Ready?
Buyers are like fruit, and they need to ripen before becoming the best they can be. The ripening process occurs with time, and from seeing enough properties at their price point in an area that makes them confident enough to decide to spend several million pounds. The ripening is often best when mixed with the regret of having previously missed out on their dream home because they were not ready to buy or were outbid. This time, they will not miss out.
There are two harvests in a typical year of an estate agency: May to mid-July and October to the beginning of December. If those are when the buyers are the ripest, when should the buying seeds be planted? Any guesses? Congratulations to those who went with the Christmas and Summer Holidays. As families spend time together and finally have time away from crazy work hours, they can dream and discuss what their ideal home looks like and how much better their life will be in it. This creates an emotional energy that kick-starts the process.
Why Boxing Day Isn’t the Best Time to Launch Your Property
So given the above, it is not surprising that Boxing Day is Rightmove's busiest by a country mile, but it is a bad time to launch! When people are looking at Rightmove they are often back with their families abroad or in the countryside (this is London after all), so by the time they come back to London for the beginning of term time, your home has already been on the market for at least two weeks, which has the unfortunate effect of indicating to the buyer that it isn't moving quickly and that there must be a reason for this. Also, they have only just started looking and there is no way they will drop £10m on the first thing they see. So watch out for agents who give you that Boxing Day Rightmove stat in the next few months because they either don't know, or apply the concept above, or have an incentive misaligned with your best interests. Agents like to have properties on the market at that time so that potential vendors who look online can see that the agency is marketing lots of homes in your area (it does not mean they are selling them).
Once the buyer seed is planted, it needs nourishment and that initially comes from seeing what's available on Rightmove or Zoopla. Buyers in our price points quickly realise that many properties are held off-market, and once they earn the trust of the best agents, they will be further nourished by accessing these hidden gems. We question buyers deeply before deciding whether to allow access to our off-market properties. A number of factors are at play, from qualification to security, to make sure it is an exclusive experience, because for a buyer to pay the best price possible to our clients, they need to appreciate how lucky they are to see a property like this, hence justifying its premium price.
The Buyer’s Journey: 3 Months to Readiness
Anyway, back to our "seed"y story: The buyer who decides to buy over the Christmas holidays will, on average, need about 3 months of looking or seeing about 15 properties until they are ready to buy, whichever comes first. This means they are not really ready to buy until April but then you also need to factor in Easter and Passover holidays too. While they may be ready to buy at that point, I did mention buyer's remorse is a key component to creating a great buyer, hence we advise most of our clients to actually come to market from Mid-May onwards. This is the point at which the first crop of buyers are ready for Harvest and are willing to pay the highest possible price, as long as they are put through KIRE's PRO-cess (copyright). The buyers thought they would never find their dream home, but just before closing, your property walked into Annabel's, looking fantastic, and they whisked it off to marry it before it even got to the dance floor.
The Summer Slowdown and the Autumn Rebound
Come mid-July the Prime market dies off, as many affluent buyers can now be "working from home" by the pool in St Tropez, Capri or The Hamptons for the whole summer. Here, many agents will again advise their vendors to launch their homes in late August or early September, but in a normal year, that is too soon, in our opinion. The reasons are that buyers have lost momentum and unripened a bit over the summer and need to reacquaint themselves with the market. In addition, they are expecting new properties to come to market then, so they want to wait and see what comes in those first weeks, which stops them from being able to make a purchase decision. If you go on too early, they will still love your home but feel they need to see others before being ready to buy. By the time this happens, you have been on for a month and have lost the sense of urgency. By the beginning of October, they become ready to buy again. Traditionally, in a normal autumn, I agree that most homes are sold in October/November.
A Contrarian Strategy
That said, last year due to the upcoming budget being so closely watched, Sam and I decided to go against the grain, as we felt the uncertainty created would upset the supply of properties in Q3 2024, and the typical buying cycle. We adopted a contrarian stance and launched several properties early and these were jumped upon. As a result, we agreed the sale of four properties in the last week of the quarter, two of which went to best and final bids achieving ~5% above asking price for each.
My business partner and best friend Sam Patterson's MBA and long career as a Strategy Consultant, mean that we are always forecasting the incoming ripples and waves that may hit our clients’ "Sale" (pun intended) Boat. That said, we also know the prevailing winds to catch to give our clients Plain "Sale-ing".
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