If you’re a homeowner, that’s a pretty uncomfortable sentence to read.

But it’s also one of the most honest summaries of how the market behaves.

This line came from Richard Donnell (Executive Director of Research at Zoopla) in a live Q&A on MovingHomeWithCharlie.

• Watch it and make your own judgement here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvCuuJV-USM 

I’m not sharing it to be dramatic. I’m sharing it because it explains something sellers feel every week and most agents still pretend isn’t real:

The market is time-sensitive (and buyers are ruthless)

When a property launches, there’s a short window where you get the best of everything:

• Fresh attention (new-to-market alerts, saved searches, agent calls)

• Serious buyers who are actively viewing this month, not “sometime this year”

• The potential for competition (which is what protects your price)

Once you drift beyond that early window, buyer psychology changes.

You’ve seen it yourself.

If you’re trying to buy while also selling, you’ll have scrolled past homes that have been sat there for 3–6 months, maybe reduced once or twice, and thought:

• “What’s wrong with it?”

• “Why hasn’t anyone bought it?”

• “If nobody else wants it, what am I missing?”

That’s the real danger of going stale.

It’s not that the home becomes worse.

It’s that the market’s story about it becomes worse.

Here’s the bit most sellers miss: you can actually devalue the property

If you don’t sell in that first 4–6 week window, the risk isn’t just “it takes longer”.

The risk is that you start training the market to believe:

• the price is wrong

• the seller is unrealistic

• there must be a hidden issue

And once buyers believe that, you don’t just lose urgency - you lose leverage.

That’s when reductions stop being a strategy and start being damage control.

The point Richard makes (and why it matters)

A few key themes from the video (again — watch it and decide for yourself):

• A huge percentage of listings don’t sell (the “62%” figure discussed in the Q&A). That usually points to a mismatch between expectation and reality — price, presentation, positioning, or all three.

• Time kills leverage. The longer you sit, the more buyers assume they can negotiate harder.

• The market gets clogged by non-proceedable buyers. Richard talks about buyers getting offers accepted before they’ve sold their own home — in other words, before they even know what their real budget is.

That last point is more damaging than people realise.

Because when buyers offer without having sold, what they’re really saying is:

• “We hope we can sell.”

• “We think we’ll get a certain price.”

• “We assume the chain will behave.”

Sometimes it works. But often it leads to:

• Delays while they try to sell

• Wobbles when their sale price comes in lower than expected

• Renegotiations when reality hits

• And fall-through risk for everyone else in the chain

That’s not just annoying; it’s detrimental to the whole market.

Why our marketing process is built around speed (not hope).

This is exactly why we don’t treat the launch like a casual first step.

We treat it like the main event.

Because if you want the best price and the best chance of a clean sale, you need decisive demand early.

Here’s what our average launch performance looks like:

• Avg viewings: 24

• Avg offers: 6

• Days to offer accepted: 30 days

• Viewing-to-offer conversion: 31.8%

Those numbers don’t come from “nice photos” or “a good Rightmove description”.

They come from a process designed to:

• Put the property in front of the right buyers quickly

• Create enough viewing volume to generate certainty

• Turn viewings into offers (not just feedback)

• Keep control of negotiation, rather than chasing the market down with reductions

If you’re buying and selling, read this twice

If you’re trying to buy as well, a stale listing doesn’t just hurt your price.

It hurts your onward plan.

Because buyers don’t just ask “Do we like it?”

They ask “Will we be the only offer?”

One simple question to ask

If your home has been on the market for more than 4–6 weeks and you’re not under offer, ask:

Is the market rejecting the home, or, did we fail to create urgency at launch?

Those are two very different problems.

And they require very different fixes.

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