Friday 27th of February 2009

They say a week is a long time in politics, but clearly the same can be said for the property market. On Sunday one of the papers had another doom and gloom story with one of the most stupid suggestions imaginable.

If you’re selling your house, drop the price 20% and you will get a flood of buyers. Yeah – no doubt you will, but why give away 20% of its value? If it’s priced appropriately you don’t need to.

Next it went on to extol the virtues of tenders as the buyer has to nominate a price.

Well, tenders and auctions are fine. My experience here is that the theory is great but the reality is that it doesn’t work. Having watched quite a few auctions in recent months it is clear bugger-all is sold under the hammer. The most likely to sell are mortgagee properties as the bank just wants whatever money it can get.

Tenders are an alternative. Again it seems to me potential buyers just don’t like this method of selling. Unless they absolutely fall in love with a place and are prepared to pay a silly price then the likelihood of selling this way is low.

My take on the market at the moment is that if you want to sell a property, put a price on it. The market is far too skittish at the moment and vendors are too uncertain on what the value of a property is to make up prices themselves.

The other piece in the papers which caught my attention was the lead story in the Herald: Now’s the time to buy a house.

I loved it, not just because it echoed what I have been saying, but because it is right. If you have some money and are happy to invest in property, rather than shares, corporate bonds, bank deposits or something else, then consider property.

The market is near the bottom, money doesn’t get much cheaper than this, and over time prices will recover.

I’ll be watching this weekend’s media to see if they all get on the bandwagon and start preaching now is the time to buy.