As the property market remains slow it’s easy to get into negative mode.  Recent Herald headlines such as ‘Values Shaky’ ‘Sales Down’ ‘Gloom Rising’ certainly paint a negative picture.  And the facts are that the volume of sales for 2010 is down on 2009.

April – June quarter 2009 saw 50 properties sell in Whangamata compared to 35 this year.  20 sold in July 2009 compared to only 12 this year.

HOWEVER there are still offers being made and there are still properties selling – it’s still a better year than 2008!

The properties that are selling are the one’s whose owners are doing their homework.

• approx 50% of houses sold in the last 4 months sold within 90 days of coming on the market which means they were new to the market.

• of the older listings sold MOST had recently reduced their asking price.

• the median difference between list and sell price was approx $5k.

If you want to sell a property it’s imperative that you do your homework with the help of your listing agent.  You MUST know what similar properties in similar locations have sold for and you must be aware of all your competition that is out there – then you need to list your property within 5% of your expected sale price.

Buyers are doing their homework – all this information is out there and readily available to them through internet sites so most serious buyers are very savvy about property values.

Properties are still selling and the most likely to sell are the ones that are presented, priced and promoted properly by a professional agent.

Regards 

Sue Hunt

Licensed Manager