Lot 05, printed guide, to agreed
Of the guide we printed for it
Enquiries on the lot with no figure
The claim
“Guide on application” protects the price.
Every season an owner asks us to leave the figure off. The reasoning is always the same and it is never unreasonable: a number invites a negotiation, and the house is worth what the right buyer will pay for it. We have printed a guide on every public entry since 2012 anyway, and this note is the arithmetic behind that.
The first thing a missing figure does is change who writes to you. A registered buyer with a budget cannot tell whether your house is at the bottom of their range or a million dollars above it, so they either ask, or they move on. Asking costs them an email and a day; moving on costs them nothing. In a season where the median house takes forty-one days to agree, the buyers who move on are the whole market.
What we did
Three lots, one season, two of them without a printed figure.
We did not set out to run a test. Two owners this spring asked for no figure and one asked for a guide that was frankly high, so we had three lots to watch. Lot 05 carried its guide from the first day. Lot 02 went out on application. Lot 09 went out eleven per cent above the evidence, with a figure printed, because the owner wanted to see what happened.
What happened to each of the three
Guide printed on day one
102.4% of guide
Guide on application
Under our printed figure
Printed 11% above the evidence
Cut in week seven
Three houses is not a study. It is, however, the whole of one season in one office, and the direction was the same in every one of the three.
Written between viewings · Havilon & Co.