Feature article
Agents share: Tips for exploring off-market sale vs on-market sale with vendors
Learn expert tips from agents for overcoming the off-market conversation and achieving the best price.
Most of you will be experiencing a less bullish property market wherever you are in the country this winter.
As vendors wait to sell, some are deciding that they’d rather approach things in a less public way, selling their home off market.
“We’re definitely having conversations about off market listings at the moment,” says Tommy’s Real Estate agent, Chris Robinson who specialises in Wellington’s Island Bay market where it’s a popular way of selling.
The approach is becoming part of the process in some cases, he explains. “We’ll have the home available without advertising it for a month or eight weeks before we launch into a full campaign.”
However, Chris, like any other agent, would prefer to give each property a comprehensive and public campaign.
It’s not uncommon to find a vendor has been approached by a friend or tenant about selling privately, he says. “But when we go on the open market and create competition we do achieve a better price and sometimes it will be that initial party (the friend or the tenant) that ends up buying,” he says.
Here are some tips for helping vendors consider on-market options.
Go appointment-only
“It’s all about understanding the client’s personal situation and motivation,” says Joe Nidd, owner of Nidd Realty in Dunedin. “For us, it’s about tailoring to owners’ wants and needs.”
For some people it’s more important for them to maintain their privacy than to get a top price, he explains.
“They may run a business from home which a market sale could interrupt, for others it’s terrifying to upend their life for the full marketing period,” says Joe.
When a person is concerned about letting crowds of people in with an open home, he’ll often suggest “by private appointment viewings” only rather than going off market completely.This comes with certain upsides.
“You tend to end up with a reduced number of inspections but they’ll be higher quality and these private viewings allow us to engage with buyers more,” says Joe. And there may be a smaller amount of market feedback but again it’s a higher quality, he adds.
The private viewing route can work quite well for people with inside pets, who don’t want doors left open during an open home. He estimates one in 20 clients has an inside animal.
“We know for a lot of people, their animals are as important as their children so there’s a huge responsibility for us in those situations,” says the Nidd Realty owner.
In some cases, he’ll suggest doing a hard and fast campaign of two to three weeks and putting the cat in the cattery for that period.
Sometimes clients are anxious about how they can live in the home during a full on marketing campaign and he has seen some of his agents go the extra mile and offer accommodation to their clients during this time. One Nidd Realty agent has a downstairs flat they’ve allowed the vendors to move to, for instance.
Another scenario happening at the moment is where a property fails to sell on the open market and is then withdrawn, but still remains available for sale through their agent. People who are watchlisting a property on Trade Me, will get in touch and ask: “What’s happening with that property?” and then they might negotiate the sale after the fact, says Joe.
The full on-market persuasion
Be a good listener, but do everything you can to persuade your seller to come to the market, is the advice from Unlimited Potential (UP) director Barry Thom.
“You only sell once and to sell for a figure that’s unproven seems a shame,” says Barry. “Pride getting in the way of making the right business decision can be costly for the homeowner,” he adds. “How do you know if you’ve got your best buyer if you’ve only shown it to three people?”
The price that you get after a campaign may seem like a terrible one, or disappointing, but if it’s been on the market for six to eight weeks and it’s had 6000 hits online, it is what it is, he says.
“From where I sit I want to be able to look someone in the eye and say: ‘Even if the sale price is disappointing, we’ve done the best we could’.”
Sellers need to be brave, adds seasoned Professionals Lower Hutt agent, Shane Brockelbank.
He tries to steer people away from selling off market unless there’s an underlying reason. For instance, if the property was on the market six months ago and they’ve already got a fair idea of what they’ll accept.
“At the end of the day, there’s an opportunity cost, (potential foregone profit from a missed opportunity) if you sell off market,” he says. And that’s a loss for all parties.
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