How do you beat those odds?

When most people decide to put their Derby home on the market, they assume one thing...

After all, why wouldn’t it? You instruct an estate agent, the board goes up, photos appear on the portals and viewings get booked and offers made. Simples! Except it is not.

Because what most Derby homeowners never get told is the real probability of you selling and moving. Looking at every Derby estate agent…

The remaining 42.1% of homes (i.e. over 4 in 10) failed to sell, withdrawing from the market unsold. And those chances vary massively, property to property.

At the end of the day though, whether you sell your home or not almost always comes down to two things. The marketing of your home and its pricing. Every property is unique. Its location, condition, layout, presentation and even timing all play a part and so the marketing of the home needs to be bespoke as does its asking price. Interestingly, I was asked recently if the price band of a property made any difference to the home’s saleability. One would think it shouldn’t, yet the figures tell a different story.

Let me share with you what I found about the Derby property market and the chances of getting your home sold (and moved), split down by price band.

Let’s start with something simple. When you list your home for sale, there are only two possible outcomes:

1 - You exchange contracts, complete the house sale and move home.

2 - You withdraw the property unsold.

Everything else is noise.

So, I have looked at the data for every Derby property that has left every Derby estate agent’s book over the last two years. Then calculated how many have successfully sold (& exchanged and completed) verses how many were withdrawn and never sold.

The results are eye opening.

    

In simple terms:

You might be thinking, surely that is just Derby? Actually, no. The exact same pattern plays out nationally and across the East Midlands. Here’s how Derby compares:

So, as asking prices increase, the odds of selling your home fall.

The higher up the price ladder you go, the smaller the buyer pool becomes.

There are fewer 'proceedable' buyers. Affordability tightens. Mortgage stress tests get harder. Even wealthy buyers become more selective when borrowing costs rise. Yet the biggest thing with the most expensive homes is that they are harder to value and price right. Also, some estate agents like to have prestige homes on the market for kudos, so overegg the suggested asking price. Overpricing becomes the biggest danger of all.

When the market was red hot in 2021, many sellers got away with ambitious pricing. Buyers had FOMO. Mortgage rates were dirt cheap. Stock was limited.

But we are not in that market anymore.

In today’s 2025 Derby market, pricing too high is the fastest way to end up in the withdrawal pile. Once your property goes stale, price drops often fail to undo the damage. Buyer confidence weakens. The home lingers unsold. And as the data shows, that is exactly what is happening to almost half of the sellers in certain price brackets.

One of the biggest misconceptions sellers have is that ‘price equals value’. It doesn’t.

Value is what someone will pay. And getting that buyer to step forward takes more than putting it online and hoping. In this market, experienced Derby estate agents do three things that make the difference:

They price correctly from day one.

They qualify and manage buyers effectively.

They negotiate firmly and protect your sale through to exchange and completion.

The best agents understand the psychology behind buyer behaviour. They manage expectations. They create competition, not just interest.

Of course, every property is different. The data here looks at the broader trends across Derby. You might have a home that defies these odds. You might also have a home that falls victim to them. What matters is not just knowing these statistics but understanding how they apply to your specific Derby home, location, and condition.

The question Derby homeowners should be asking is not: "What price do I want?"

It is: "What price gives me the best odds of successfully moving?"

Because nobody puts their Derby home up for sale to just sit there. The goal is not to be on the market. The goal is to be moved and onto the next chapter of your life. And pricing correctly, from day one, remains the most powerful decision you control as a seller.

It is not about what asking price you place your home on for, it is about what you end up selling it for, compared to the price of the one you are buying. The real cost of moving is the gap between the two, not just how much you could get for yours. That is the bit most people forget when making home moving decisions.

 

These are my thoughts, do you have anything to add to them?