You are the owner of an apartment in Sitges and have had it for sale for some time now. Your apartment is nice and Sitges is one of the most expensive places in Spain, so buyers won’t be lacking. What could go wrong?
At first, you thought the best way to sell it was to post an ad online; selling an apartment like yours should be easy, a neighbor, your brother-in-law, a friend’s cousin… they’ve all sold their apartment online and it was very easy, or so they say… Plus, if you sell it yourself, you won’t have to pay any agency and you’ll make more money.
First, you have to decide on the price. You remember what you were told some time ago when a similar apartment was sold, if they paid that much for that apartment… you should ask for more for yours, and besides, some time has passed and everything goes up. So you go online, look at how much the square meter price is in your neighborhood, and multiply it by the square meters of your apartment, €426,000 but since yours is better than the neighbor’s, I’ll ask for €450,000 and round it up.
Next step, you take your latest generation mobile phone and take some great photos of the apartment, you open a user account on Idealista to post the ad for your apartment, upload the photos, fill in all the fields, and publish it, now you just have to wait for the buyers.
Not even an hour has passed and the phone starts ringing. This is going well! When you start answering the calls, they are from agencies in the area telling you they have a buyer interested in your apartment, they have called you 14 times on the first day, 14 buyers in my area and none have seen your ad on Idealista?
In the first days of publication, more agencies are calling with buyers and in the middle of this hurricane, you receive 4 contacts from people who are interested in the apartment, thank goodness. You call them, tell them about the virtues of your apartment or not, because they have already seen the photos in the ad and out of the 4, 3 come to see the apartment, this is starting to work.
The first one tells you that the apartment is fine, but… well, he doesn’t know why, but he just doesn’t like it…
The second one tells you that the area is not what he was looking for, but the apartment could work, although he would have to make some renovations to update it and then it would exceed his budget…
The third one seems more decided, everything seems to fit him, but before leaving, he mentions that he has to go to the bank because he has some savings, but to buy an apartment for €450,000 he doesn’t have enough and besides asking for a mortgage, he has to find a bank or person to finance the part he lacks, which is not much, but he needs €50,000 more that he doesn’t have.
Weeks go by and there are agencies that keep calling and fewer individuals, then you think that giving it to an agency might be a good idea and you tell the one that called you to come and take some photos and see what happens. After a few days, you don’t know how you ended up giving the apartment to 8 agencies, and you don’t know how to say no to the ones that call you, maybe this one is the good one… This can’t be stopped.
The agencies that come tell you that the apartment is a bit expensive but well, most of them don’t make you sign anything and don’t demand much from you, the truth is that they are not bringing visits either, only one or two agencies ask you questions and occasionally bring a client. You don’t even remember the names of the rest of the agencies.
At this point, your apartment is the most well-known on Idealista, when you posted it as an individual it reached people who might be interested and then every time an agency posts it, the same thing happens, there are people who have received your apartment in their email 12 times and still don’t want to see it, what’s going on?
At this point, your apartment is overexposed, the people who might be interested haven’t bought it, the agencies that handle it have already gotten used to having it in the shop window and time goes by without news, the way to stimulate the sale is by lowering the price. Let’s lower it by €10,000 and see if it picks up, we’re at €440,000.
We repeat the above, interested parties and those who have visited and still haven’t bought receive the notice that your apartment has dropped in price 12 times, a couple of them call the agency to ask if they already smell blood or if they have to wait, the agency tells them that it’s still expensive, it’s better to wait because it won’t sell.
After a month, we do the same, lower it by another €10,000 and the actions are repeated, we’ve been on the market for 6 months, 2 price drops and there are no expectations of selling. Meanwhile, we continue to pay the community fees, the property tax, the garbage fee, electricity, water, gas, and the small mortgage payment that we have left. At an average of €400 per month, we’ve spent €2,400 + €20,000 off.
This bleeding of time and money can reach unpredictable limits, the buyer increasingly perceives the wear and tear of the apartment and for him, it is worth less than when it went on the market, maybe at first he saw it as interesting for €400,000 but now not even for that.
Apartments that follow this sales strategy to the end usually devalue between 15% and 25% of their initial price so this apartment will end up selling for around €375,000 with over a year of wear and tear on the market.
If you want to avoid this and get the most out of your apartment, you have to start doing things differently, first get advice from a professional (Would you dare to pull out a tooth from your spouse? Would you dare to sell your assets without knowing about it?)
You can do the valuation by hiring an appraiser company that will cost you about €500 and will be valid for 3 months or a real estate agent, who normally won’t charge you, and can advise and accompany you throughout the process.
When you have the price you have to decide if it’s worth selling or not, because if they tell you that the apartment is worth €400,000 and you’re going to ask for €450,000 because it’s what you need or what you would like, it’s not the time to sell, look for another solution because the buyer is not stupid and has a lot of market information and offers of apartments.
If you decide that the price suits you, hire an agency that guarantees you that it has a plan to sell your apartment, that dedicates human, technical, and creative resources to selling your apartment. Agencies charge their fees on a success basis, therefore, if they don’t sell, they don’t charge, make sure they can invest what is necessary to bring out the best version of your apartment:
Make a realistic appraisal Fiscal advice Professional photographic report Virtual tour of the property Promotional video Material for social networks Advertisement accounts in real estate portals to position your apartment in the first positions A qualified database of buyers to whom to offer the apartment before going on the market Agents who speak English and French (half of the buyers are foreigners) Contacts with banks to get mortgages
And most importantly, that they get involved with you and the sale of your apartment to make everything go well and keep you informed of everything that happens during the process.
Once you have identified the agency that offers you these guarantees, trust them and work only with them, at least for 3 months, if after this time the apartment has not been sold, consider whether you need to change or they are working well and you continue with them.
If at the beginning you give it to 2-3 agencies to sell it, none of them will invest all these resources in selling the apartment because if they do, another agency may sell it because the client knows them or because randomly they have contacted some and not others.
The agency to whom you entrust the sale must guarantee that they collaborate with any company or individual who has an interest in your apartment, if they do not collaborate, you are missing opportunities, but if you do, you are ensuring success.
Having a professional agency that sets the price for you, makes a marketing plan, generates all the necessary quality content to highlight the apartment in the market, and collaborates is giving you everything you need to sell your apartment at a good price and in a short time.
Keep in mind that when you give the apartment to several agencies, what they do once they have exhausted the interested parties is to use it to sell other apartments and tell buyers that this apartment nearby is better and yours is not a good opportunity, in the end your apartment helps to sell other apartments in the area. Also, when you work with agencies like this, they care about the buyer, defend the interests of the one who wants to buy, if they make an offer they will try to convince you that it is good because if they don’t, another agency can sell it and they prefer to squeeze you and charge you rather than risk another agency bringing a buyer from whom they don’t get anything, the good thing about all this is that if they convince you, you will pay them their “fees”.
The sales process must be done well to have a strong position in the market and an interlocutor who defends the interests of the seller because it is who has hired him and for whom he works.
Going to the market as I explained at the beginning can be very expensive, lower selling price, expenses of the apartment for longer and in many cases paying fees to an agency that has not looked after your interests.
Now do you know why you haven’t sold your apartment in Sitges?
Article by Living Sitges Real Estate