'Cheerleader’ estate agents take 11 weeks longer to sell listings - claim

A high-profile agency brand has hit out at “cheerleader’ estate agents” who it claims encourage vendors to push up the asking price of their property.

The agent Andrews claims this practise, described as ‘pom-pom pricing’ more than doubles  the average time it takes to sell a home.

Using data from Spectre, Andrews claims that overvaluing could add almost three months to a typical sale, potentially costing the vendor more in the long run and increasing stress.

Correctly priced homes that require no reductions take just over seven weeks to get an offer accepted, according to the research.

However, for sellers who have to make a price reduction, the average process takes more than 18 weeks, or an extra 80 days. 

For those owners unfortunate enough to need two price reductions it takes more than 27 weeks to agree a sale, increasing to almost 36 weeks for those requiring three price drops, and hitting nearly a year for those requiring six or more, Andrews said.

In contrast, almost a third of "realistically-priced" homes sell in the first two weeks, compared with only 7% of those that need one price reduction, the data suggests.

The picture varies across the country, with homes in Greater London taking 17.7 weeks to sell, compared with an average across England and Wales of 14.4 weeks.

"Properly-priced" properties sell fastest in East England, taking only 6.6 weeks to find a buyer, the research found, while homes in Greater London take more than a week longer on average, at 7.7 weeks.

Carl Howard, group chief executive of Andrews, said: “Some estate agents offer unrealistically high valuations for properties, knowing that owners will see pound signs flashing before their eyes. 

“The danger of setting too high an asking price for your home is that it will stagnate on the market, appearing increasingly stale as buyers wait for the inevitable price reduction. 

“As our research shows, pitching too high is a false economy that can leave sellers in limbo and may even lead them to miss out on their next property.”