Why the first month decides the final price

What happens during the first thirty days?

When a property goes online it is seen by a pool of buyers that has been building for months: people actively searching, with finance in place, who know local prices and recognise an opportunity immediately. That is the stock of waiting buyers.

That stock does not replenish at the same rate. Once it has seen your listing and set it aside, it stops looking at it. After the first few weeks, your property is seen only by the flow — the newcomers to the market, far fewer in number.

That is the mechanical reason viewings and offers cluster at the start. It is not an agent's impression, it is the structure of demand itself.

Why does an over-priced property sell for less?

Because it burns through its stock of buyers without getting anything for it. A property listed ten per cent above its value is dismissed by qualified buyers, who compare daily. It attracts only the curious and the bargain hunters waiting for the reduction.

Then come the successive reductions. Each one is visible: the portals display price history, and buyers read it. A property that has been reduced three times sends a clear signal — the seller is under pressure, it is not moving, there may be a problem. The final negotiation starts from there.

The outcome is nearly always the same: more time, more pointless viewings, and a completion price below what a correct opening position would have produced.

How do you recognise a serious valuation?

A defensible valuation rests on completed sales, not advertised prices. It compares genuinely comparable properties — same commune, same type, same condition, same aspect — and it explains its adjustments.

• It cites its comparables and lets you check them.
• It distinguishes explicitly between the asking price and the expected completion price.
• It factors in work to be done with real orders of magnitude, not vague approximations.
• It gives you a range and the reasoning that bounds it, not a single figure.

Be wary of the opposite mechanism, which is widespread: the most flattering valuation is often the one designed to win the instruction, not to sell the property. It costs the seller six months and part of their price.

What if the property has been listed for a long time?

One more marginal reduction will not restart anything: it prolongs the negative signal. What works is to take the file back to the start — new photographs, new copy, surveys and quotes brought up to date — and to reposition the price in a single move, at the right level, rather than in steps.

A property withdrawn for a few weeks and then properly re-presented recovers part of the novelty effect. It is not magic, but it beats coming down five thousand euros every two months.