Sell your home quickly without dropping the price too far

If you want to sell your home quickly and still get a good price, you do not have to choose between the two. They go hand in hand when the price matches the market. Nationwide, the average total time on the market for detached houses is 334 days, while owner-occupied flats stay on the market for about 130 days on average. That figure is not just a measure of patience. It is a measure of how badly a price can miss the mark.

That is because the discount grows with the time on the market. If the home is on the market for 0-30 days, the discount is typically 0-2 %. At 30-90 days it rises to 2-4 %, at 90-180 days 4-6 %, at 180-365 days 6-10 %, and beyond 365 days the discount ends up at 10-20 %. A home priced 10 % above market value sells on average 60-100 days more slowly than a correctly priced home. In other words, a slow sale and a large discount are two sides of the same coin.

But a quick sale is not automatically a good sale. A home can sell in a short time for less than its market price if it is priced too low from the start. What matters is not how quickly you get rid of the home, but that you hit the market price. Then both the pace and the price will follow.

What a long time on the market costs you

When a home has been on the market for a long time, the market punishes it. That is not a feeling but a pattern that can be measured in kroner. A home that has been on the market for 200 days and then has its price lowered to the right market price still typically sells 8-12 % below market price. So you can do everything right at the end and still lose money, because the 200 days in themselves have shaped buyers’ perception of what the home is worth.

Many people think that switching estate agents resets the history and gives a fresh start. It does not. Changing agents does not reset the total time on the market. A home with 400 days still comes across as a 400-day home, because Boligsiden (a Danish property portal) shows the total time on the market across all agents within 3 years. Buyers and their advisers see the same figure, no matter whose name is on the listing now. That is why the price you set from day one is the only thing you can really control.

A long time on the market makes buyers think there is something they are missing, or that a price cut is on its way. Nobody wants to buy something others have passed over for months, and once that doubt has been planted, both interest and the final price fall. That is the vicious circle that makes it hard to sell a home without dropping the price once you have fallen behind.

You have a concrete tool for keeping an eye on developments. Use the discount percentage in your neighbourhood as an indicator. If it rises, it is a warning that times on the market are heading up. During the interest rate rises in 2022, selling times rose by 40-60 % over three quarters, and that happened before most people had time to react. If you see discounts growing in your area, it is time to adjust the price, not to wait for the market to turn back.

Set the right price from day 1

Pricing a home must be based on local, completed sales, not on gut feeling or a figure for the whole country. You cannot sell your home at the right price if the asking price is a guess. Here are four things that should guide the price from day one.

• Use actual sale prices from Finans Danmark’s housing market statistics at postcode level, not a national average. Gentofte has the country’s highest house prices and Lolland the lowest, and the gap is so wide that a national figure tells you nothing useful about what your home is worth.

• Bear in mind that a municipality’s average covers neighbourhoods that can be 30 % apart. It is a benchmark, not a valuation of your home.

• Use the discount, i.e. the difference between the asking price and the actual sale price, as the most informative figure when you set your asking price. It shows how much buyers actually negotiate the price down in your area.

• Remember that the statistics look backwards and are compiled quarterly, with a delay. Sales without an estate agent and sales within families are not included in the housing market statistics, so the figures do not cover the whole market.

The day 1 price has to match the market, not what you wish for.

Avoid costly price cuts

Set a realistic price from the start. An overpriced home that only gets a price cut after 90 days typically sells for less than if it had been priced correctly from day 1. That is the stigma of a long time on the market working against you. The 90 days on the market stay with the home, even after you lower the price.

A good pricing strategy when selling a home is therefore not about hitting the highest figure you can imagine. It is about hitting the figure buyers actually pay in your area.

• Set your minimum price in advance and avoid straying from it lightly. At the same time, consider starting a little below the maximum price you could accept, so you have room for negotiation without having to lower the price publicly.

• If you sell privately, you can set the price a little higher than comparable homes to leave room for negotiation, but be careful. You probably lack market knowledge, and it is hard to negotiate on price when you do not know the completed sales in your neighbourhood.

• Ask 2-3 estate agents for a written valuation, and choose the price all three can stand behind, not the highest.

The whole strategy is about sparing yourself the price cuts you could have avoided by setting the right price from the beginning.

When homes sell fastest

The season matters almost as much as the price when you want to sell your home quickly.

The difference between the two extremes is large. A detached house put up for sale in May typically sells 20-40 % faster than the same house put up for sale in November, even at the same price. It is the same home, the same neighbourhood and the same supply, but the calendar alone shifts the selling time markedly.

Put your home up for sale by 15 September at the latest to catch July-August, the second-best period of the year, with a time on the market at or below the annual average. If you wait until November, you will face both the 150-300+ days and the 5-8 % discount that winter typically brings.

Get a free valuation from Brikk

If the price matches the market from day one, the pace and the final price will follow. The longer the home stays on the market, the more costly the discount becomes. The next step is to get a concrete figure to steer by, and that starts with a free valuation.

• Brikk works with a fixed fee of 22.500 kr. if you show the home yourself, or 34.500 kr. if Brikk handles the viewings, and you are not tied to anything, because the valuation is free and without obligation.

• The packages cover a photographer, floor plan, advertising on the major property portals, sales brochure and a dedicated agent all the way from valuation to handover of the keys. The only difference between the two packages is whether you handle the viewings yourself.

• Brikk has sold over 4.000 homes and is a member of Dansk Ejendomsmæglerforening, the Danish estate agents’ association. A local valuation specialist comes to your home and assesses its selling price and potential.

If you want to sell your home with a low fee and still avoid ending up too low, you should start with a free valuation. Book your free, no-obligation valuation with Brikk and get a concrete price range and a plan for a quick sale, without having to accept too steep a discount.