Price it Right it Sells Overnight – Price it Wrong it Stays too Long

Experience has taught Helen Melon Properties, Plett’s niche property specialists, that pricing a property right in the first place will save disappointment and achieve higher prices for sellers in the long run.

This strategy has been endorsed by the recent Property 24 average price listed (asking price) versus average price achieved (selling price) differential for Plett since 2014. This differential is often seen as the “negotiations game” played between buyer and seller. The differential in Plett is exceptionally high.

Percentage Difference

This graph shows the average selling price and asking price of registered sales in the deeds office and all Property24 listings for Plettenberg Bay for the same time period. https://www.property24.com/plettenberg-bay/property-trends/325

What is significant, is that Property 24’s figures show a widening gap between the average asking price and the average selling price since 2021. The differential (between asking price and selling price) indicates that properties could be overvalued - for whatever reason. Unachievable asking prices create false expectations for the seller and deters buyers. When the property eventually sells at a fair market price, the seller ends up disappointed.

“Overvaluing a property undermines the intrinsic value of the property, taking longer for it to sell,” according to Helen Ward, Principal of Plett’s boutique property agency Helen Melon Properties.

The mapping of the latest statistics from Property 24 shows the difference between the asking price and selling price of properties in Plett remained fairly constant between 2014 and 2020 at an average of 34 %. This differential jumped to an average of 38% between 2021 and 2024, when Plett saw an upturn in sales and house prices.

The driver of this trend is that the Plett property industry has seen a boom of its own. In the last few years, the number of property agencies serving the market has ballooned from approximately 11 to over 60, with the number of agents in the market growing from approximately 75 to over 200.

“This has introduced intense competition which, paired with the relative inexperience of some agents and interns, who do not have the knowledge or fundamental understanding of the Plett market, has created the trend of the widening gap between asking and selling prices.”

Agents feed on this higher price expectation to secure a listing or mandate with a client. “The unrealistic asking price in the market is generally driven by agents,” says Ward. This is compounded by the fact that sellers look at Property 24 and window shop and base their anticipated selling prices on the advertised prices seen. Many sellers are not aware of the differential between the asking and selling price.

“This is where our experience and understanding of the market counts. We obtain market related prices, preventing disappointment for the sellers,” says Ward.

Helen Melon Properties tracks the actual prices achieved and, combined with years of experience in Plett, ensures that a property is marketed at the right price in the first place.

This is reflected in the fact that a number of properties are sold before they are listed, at or above the full asking price. “It indicates that dealing with an experienced property practitioner with an insightful knowledge of the Plett property market does pay dividends,” said Ward.