We Spend Weeks Marketing a Home. But Which Week Actually Sells It?

If most homes sell in the first five weeks, what does it cost the sellers who wait?

The question I’m asked most isn’t about price. It’s “how long will this take?”

It’s a fair question, and one I think our industry often answers with instinct rather than evidence. So we looked at our own numbers: 472 sales across Ray White Maroochydore and Buderim over the past 12 months.

Some homes sell before they reach the portals

Almost 12% of our sales came through Buyer Match, where a home was matched to a buyer before, or on the day, it went to market.

That doesn’t happen by chance. It’s the result of what we call Ray White First.

It starts with our buyer database. Our team conducts more than 300 buyer inspections every week, and each one adds to what we know about who is looking and what they’re looking for.

Alongside that, we’ve built our own custom online audience of people actively searching for property. Across our group, more than 100,000 property seekers now see our homes first, before they appear on realestate.com.au or Domain.

For a seller, that means the buyers most likely to act get the first look, while the campaign is fresh and before the home is competing with every other listing online. It’s a point of difference most agents can’t offer.

For homes that go through a full campaign, one week stood out.

Week four is where campaigns are won

Nearly 30% of our auction sales happened in week four, auction week. Weeks four and five together accounted for 46%. Private treaty peaked in the same week, at 16.9%.

After week five, both methods taper off.

That isn’t a coincidence. A good campaign builds to a moment. Buyers need a deadline to commit, and sellers need a point at which to make a decision. Competition is created, not found.

Homes still sell later. The question is at what cost

Around one in 10 of our on-market sales happened after week 12: 9.1% of auction campaigns and 10.6% of private treaty. Those homes sold. But selling and selling well aren’t the same thing.

Think about it from the buyer’s side. A home appears in their search in week one and they book an inspection. Ten weeks later, it’s still there. They don’t ask what makes it special. They ask what’s wrong with it, and how much lower the seller will go.

That’s the shift time creates. The conversation moves from competition to negotiation, and negotiation usually starts from the buyer’s number, not the seller’s.

The national data reflects it. Cotality has the typical home now taking 41 days to sell, up from 26 a year ago, with the average vendor discount at 4.2% and capital cities at a five-year high. On a $1.2 million home on the Coast, that’s around $50,000.

Time on market is rarely free. It’s usually paid for at the end, in price.

Five ways to sell sooner, and for more

So what can a seller actually do about it? These are the five things we see make the biggest difference.

1. Make it easy to inspect

Every hurdle between a buyer and a viewing costs you interest. If someone has to call, wait for a reply and fit around a single time slot, many simply won’t. Multiple open homes at times that suit buyers, including weekends and after work, remove that friction and bring more people through in the weeks that matter most.

2. Let the market set the price

Advertising a price before you’ve gathered genuine market feedback is one of the riskiest decisions a seller can make. Get it too low and you sell too quickly. Get it too high and you push away the very buyers you need.

There’s a quieter problem too. Buyers attach themselves to a price. If it’s too high, they don’t say so. They just decide they don’t like the home, and often can’t explain why. Taking the home to auction removes that barrier and lets buyers’ competition do the work.

3. Look closely at the contract, not just the offer

Not every offer is equal. In our experience, cash and unconditional contracts proceed every time, while contracts subject to the sale of another property proceed in fewer than one in 10 cases. A slightly higher offer with a long list of conditions can easily cost more in time than it adds in price.

4. Give the sale a deadline

Without a finish line, buyers wait. A clear date, whether an auction day or a set closing date, creates urgency and gives your agent something to build energy around. It’s exactly why week four stands out in our numbers.

5. Disclose everything up front

Commissioning a building report before the campaign starts means buyers can see the full picture from day one. It takes much of the risk off the table, and buyers who feel confident about a home are far more likely to pay well for it.

The first weeks matter most

None of this is about rushing. It’s about preparing properly so the first few weeks, when buyer attention is at its highest, do the work they should.

We’re not perfect at this, and I wouldn’t suggest otherwise. But the pattern in our numbers is clear enough that I’d rather show it to sellers at the start than explain it to them in week 12.

Is your campaign built to peak, or just to wait?

Because the market rewards the first, and quietly charges for the second.