Why Comparing Your House to Last Year’s Sale Could Cost You

If you’re pricing your home based on what a similar property sold for a year ago, you’re already behind. Markets move, and the biggest mistake we see sellers make is anchoring to a sale that happened in a different market altogether, sometimes without realising it.

It’s an easy trap to fall into. Someone tells you the house across the road sold for $2.1 million, so yours should fetch the same. The problem is that sale might have happened back in 2022, or even during the COVID run when buyers were paying extraordinary prices sight unseen. That market isn’t this market. Interest rate movements alone can reset buyer behaviour almost overnight. Even a single cash rate change can tip a market into a more cautious phase, even if prices overall are still holding up.

Recent sales only tell you so much

In Victoria, when we put a price on a property we have to back it up with a statement of information. That means three comparable sales, and they need to be recent, generally within the last three to six months. That’s not a bureaucratic formality. It’s there because older sales stop being a reliable guide the further back you go. For most property, anything beyond 12 months is already on shaky ground. Acreage can sometimes be compared over a slightly longer window because that market moves slower, but for a standard house or unit, a two, three, four, or five year old sale tells you almost nothing about today’s price.

Even a recent sale can be misleading if you don’t look at how it actually happened. If a property went to auction and had four or five people bidding against each other on the day, it’s going to achieve a strong result because of that competition, not because every similar home will do the same if sold privately. We’ve also seen agents use a sale as a comparable without checking that it’s genuinely like for like. A three bedroom home that sold for a huge price under fierce auction competition isn’t a fair comparison for a four bedroom property, or vice versa. You have to compare apples with apples: same configuration, same conditions, same timeframe.

What to watch instead of old sales

Rather than fixating on what a neighbour’s house sold for, the more useful signals are the ones happening right now with your own campaign. Online views are one of the clearest early indicators. As a rough guide, getting over a thousand views a week on a listing means you’re tracking well, and getting into the 1,500 to 2,000 range in a week means there’s real strength in the marketplace. Either the property is marketed well, priced well, or both. realestate.com.au also benchmarks your campaign against a median for similar properties, so if you’re sitting above that median, that’s a good sign.

Foot traffic and enquiry levels matter just as much. If an open for inspection is genuinely busy, if people are asking questions, making offers, turning up to auction ready to bid, that’s today’s market talking, not last year’s.

Focus on your own property, not someone else’s price

It’s natural to want to compare your home to others nearby. But the more productive approach is to focus on what makes your own property stand out. If you’ve got a great outdoor area, lean into that. Think about first impressions from the moment someone walks through the gate. Everything should look and feel its best. When it comes to any work or styling before you sell, prioritise the spaces that get photographed and that buyers respond to most: living areas, kitchens, outdoor areas. The kitchen in particular tends to be the room that can make or break a home for a lot of buyers.

Presentation and positioning do more for your result than anchoring to someone else’s number ever will.

A few myths worth clearing up

“If my neighbour sold for a certain price last year, mine should too.” Not necessarily. The market six or twelve months ago may not be the market today.

“Overpricing gives you negotiation room.” It can backfire. If you’re quoted one range and then walked back down significantly, that damages trust and can work against you.

“The market decides value, not the agent.” True. Pricing should reflect current buyer behaviour, not an agent’s or owner’s wishful number.

“Longer campaigns create more competition.” Generally not the case. A shorter, well run campaign tends to produce a better outcome than dragging a listing out for months.

The takeaway is straightforward: the market doesn’t reward your memory of what things used to sell for. It rewards how well your property is positioned today, with the right comparables, the right presentation, and a clear read on current buyer behaviour.

In short

• Don’t price off sales that are more than a few months old. Markets shift quickly, especially after interest rate changes.
• Make sure any comparable sale genuinely matches your property in size, condition, and how it sold (auction versus private sale).
• Watch current signals like online views, foot traffic, and enquiry levels rather than historical prices.
• Focus your energy on presenting your property’s own strengths rather than chasing someone else’s result.
• Be wary of inflated price quotes with “room to negotiate down”, and know that shorter, well priced campaigns tend to outperform long ones.

This article draws on a conversation between Juan and Josh Merchan on the Selling Frankston podcast. Juan has been selling property in Frankston and Frankston South for more than 25 years.