BA,
i think a few days ago you asked me a question about selling my flat right? sorry i didn't respond, has been sick past few days so hardly logged on.
anyway, we just sold our place 3 days ago on friday, at $27K above valuation! we are very happy, cause our agent only brought this 1 potential buyer to our place for a viewing last week. they made us an offer, so on fri they came back for a 2nd viewing with a few more family members, and we negotiated some more, and finally agreed on the selling price and we signed the OTP on the spot.
so now that's 1 less thing to worry about, and we can concentrate on our new place.
i checked with my agent and a few other agents. they said now the market is really slowing down again. could be because it's end of the year, but also could be because the "fever" is dying down and alot of ppl are holding off buying property because prices are just too high.
they told me it would take an average of 1-3mths to market and sell off a property. but if your property is highly sought after, then it can be sold within 1 weekend.
of course, as a seller, your expectations play a part also lah. if let's say your asking price is $100K above valuation and you insist on this selling price and am not willing to compromise, then it may take a longer time to sell the place.
for our place we were not too fussy lah. we told the agent if we can get $20K above valuation we are happy liao! so agent marketed our place at $40K above valuation, but negotiable, and took it from there. so the final price of $27K above valuation is more than meets our expectations! hee...
we were just very lucky that the very 1st potential buyer the agent brought was a genuine buyer, and they were genuinely interested in our place, so were willing to make an offer.
we also had a few things that were in our favour lah. firstly, we put in a lot of effort cleaning up the place & clearing up ALL the clutter in the house for the past few weeks! and the condition of our place is still very good, and in fact the buyer told us it's in move-in condition and they probably only need to renovate the 2 bathrooms and put up curtains only. and we made sure the place was nice & cosy just before they came for viewing, ie. we turned on all the yellow lights in the house so that it looked warm & cosy, we turned on all the aircon in the house (1/c in the living rm) so that the house will not seem warm, and we always light up incense (vanilla) so that the house will smell very nice.
if you ever plan to sell your place, i would recommend you look for a good agent, and if possible go for an exclusive with this agent, because then you are assured that this agent will always have your interest at heart and will do his/her very best to market your place for you.
don't allow many agents to market your place at the same time. alot of sellers make this mistake, they think the more agents marketing, the higher the chances of selling the place. but because these agents do not have an exclusive deal with you, some of them "play dirty". what they will do is bring "potential" buyers to your place for a quick viewing, but their purpose is not to sell your place, but rather to sell another unit they have! they are just using your unit as a comparison only, just to make their other units more attractive to the buyer.
i've heard of many other dirty tricks agents get up to lah, if they do not have an exclusive with you, so it's just better to have an exclusive with just 1 agent.
this agent i used was really good. he helped us find the bishan flat, and he negotiated for us the lowest possible price. then when it came time to sell our place, he negotiated for us the highest possible price.