Your competition is more than what you think Selling your house may be like wrestling or a boxing match, if you do not have a strategy, you might get Knocked-Out! Many home owners believe that their competition is merely the other unit that is in the same development, they are sorely mistaken. If a buyer is keen in that district, the competition may be beyond just a condominium estate, but rather all the condominiums or houses in that postal district.

Especially in new developments, many owners that had put money down to purchase a unit during the pre-launch period, may want to cash out by selling their unit in the open market. During this time, you would find that once the temporary occupation permit had been issued or sometimes even a few weeks before that, units in that development will be placed on sale in the classified ads both online and offline.

Timing of when to place the unit on sale is also critical. Many adopt a herd instinct and follow what others are doing without having a direction or sales strategy. This may result in not only poor interest, but may eventually put a dent in the eventual sale price of the unit, which is catastrophic result of poor planning. 2 ways of looking at strong competition, is to leverage on them to draw crowds to the neighborhood or estate and then draw the buyers to your unit as well, or wait until the other units have sold before putting yours on the market (to avoid conflict and direct competition). If you choose the former, you may need to adopt a very careful price strategy. While if you take the latter approach, you may have more control over the eventual sale price.

A point to note is that your savings on the realtor’s commission will be reduced by the cost of marketing your property for a prolonged period of time. So make sure that you have a confident sales strategy to minimize time wastage, as well as getting the best deal in the time frame.