How Do You Sell a Flat When Identical Ones Aren't Selling? (A Real Consultation)

If you own a flat in a big city centre, you've probably seen the problem on Rightmove already. Page after page of flats almost identical to yours, and most of them sitting there month after month.

I've now done around 800 free consultations with home sellers, and this call was with a landlord selling a one-bedroom Birmingham flat in exactly that market. When we measured it, only about one seller in ten near her had actually found a buyer. I've changed some details to protect her privacy.

Her question was simple: can this flat even be sold? By the end of the call she had a specific plan for becoming one of the few that do sell, without handing tens of thousands to a quick-sale company on the way out.

In a market full of near-identical flats, the one that sells is the best deal on the day a buyer looks: presented better than the rest, priced against what has actually sold rather than what sits unsold, and marketed as widely as possible. Quick-sale routes tend to make a crowded market worse, because they shrink an already small pool of buyers.

But the reasoning matters more than the verdict, because the same market that looks hopeless from the outside has a small group of sellers quietly getting sold...

If you want to cut straight to the chase, I've built a free quiz that works out which selling method fits your property and your priorities. It takes about 60 seconds, and you get your answer straight away.

Hit the button below to get started:

1. Claire's situation: a good flat in a crowded market

Claire (not her real name) came to me about a one-bedroom flat in Birmingham city centre.

Here's where she was:

• An investment that did its job, until now.
  She bought the flat off plan in 2016 for around £200,000, including a separate parking space. It completed in 2020, and it's been rented out almost continuously ever since.
• Six easy years of tenants.
  Three sets of tenants back to back, all good ones, each staying about two years. The current tenants have given notice and leave in a few weeks.
• Nobody left in the city.
  Her family have all moved away from Birmingham, and she lives about a hundred miles away now. The flat has turned from an investment into a burden she'd rather not have.
• No mortgage, and no hard deadline.
  Once it's empty, the service charge, council tax and utilities come to roughly £350 a month. Annoying, but not a crisis.
• Good condition, and the cladding is sorted.
  Fully redecorated two years ago, kept nicely by the tenants, and the building's external wall survey (the EWS1 form) is in place. That last point matters more than many sellers realise, and I'll come back to it.
• No valuations yet.
  Similar flats were listed everywhere from around £150,000 to £180,000, so we used £170,000 as a round number to think with. Not a valuation, just a working figure.
• Worth less than she paid.
  Whatever the true number is, it's tens of thousands below her 2016 price. That loss sat underneath the whole call, and I'll come back to it too.

Her opening idea was that a company could simply buy it and take the whole thing off her hands. But the first genuinely useful thing we did was measure exactly what she was up against...

2. The two-minute market check, and what it found

Within half a mile of Claire's flat, around 40 one-bedroom flats were for sale in her price range, and only about four of them had a sale agreed. That's roughly one seller in ten finding a buyer, which is about as competitive as we ever see this check come out, anywhere in the country.

The check itself is something you can do in two minutes on Rightmove. Search flats like yours, within half a mile, in a sensible price band either side of your own. Count the listings, then count how many say "sold subject to contract" or "under offer".

We run this on properties all over the country, and the sold share usually lands somewhere between 10% and 50%. Claire's market was right at the bottom of that range.

Why do markets clog up like this? There are usually three things going on at once:

1. Sellers who don't need to sell. Plenty of these flats are listed with tenants still paying rent. The owner chucks it on at a hopeful price, and if it sells, lovely. If not, no big deal.
2. Sellers who won't meet the market. Some owners are anchored to what they paid, so they hold out at prices buyers stopped paying years ago.
3. Agents who overpromise to win the listing. The easiest way for estate agents to sign a seller up is giving a flattering valuation. The seller gets tied into a lengthy contract, then the price gets chipped down over the following months, while the listing goes stale.

Here's the important reframe, though. That one-in-ten number isn't a verdict on Claire's flat. It's just a measure of the queue of people trying to sell, and most of the queue is standing still for reasons that are fixable.

Your job in a market like this is to be the one seller in ten who gets the buyer. If your flat is already listed and going nowhere, the same diagnosis works in reverse, and I've walked through it in another real consultation about a house that hadn't sold in two years.

Claire's instinct, like most people's, was to skip the queue entirely with a quick-sale route. So we priced those routes properly first...

3. Why the quick exits make a crowded market worse

Both of the fast routes were on Claire's mind, so here's the answer we reached before the detail.

Quick-sale routes don't solve the underlying problem with a crowded market. They sidestep it altogether by simply slashing the price. For Claire, a "we buy any house" company offer meant giving up around £40,000, and auction meant £20,000 to £30,000 in a thinner room of bidders. Auction shrinks the buyer pool at the exact moment reach matters most too.

Here's the detailed breakdown of exactly why, route by route...

3.1. A "we buy any house" company

Claire had already run into the first obstacle before our call: a lot of the big "we buy any house" companies aren't buying flats at all.

Leasehold purchases are slower and riskier for these companies' "buy-cheap-resell-fast" model, so many of the major firms have walked away from the whole category.

You can still find companies who'll make an offer on a flat like Claire's. But the genuine offers tend to land around 75% of the property's value - sometimes even less. On our £170,000 working figure, that's an offer of around £125,000 to £130,000.

In other words, around £40,000 as the price of a fast sale. I've broken down what these companies really pay, and why, in my guide to how much house-buying companies actually pay.

These companies suit people who value speed, certainty and convenience far more than price, and that is not most sellers. When someone books a call with me looking at house-buying companies, I end up suggesting a different route about 97% of the time.

It certainly wasn't the right option for Claire. She has no mortgage, no deadline, and she bought this flat to make money. The thing pulling her towards a quick sale was the £350 a month an empty flat would cost, so here's the reframe I gave her.

You're not burning £350 a month. You're paying £350 a month to buy the time you need to sell for something like full value. Against a £40,000 gap, a year of those bills is a rounding error.

Top tip: Some companies claim they'll pay 90% or even 95% of market value. Behind a claim like that sits one of two things:

1. A high offer that drops later, once you're committed and short of time.
2. No real purchase at all. They quietly go looking for a buyer for you, which leaves you worse off than a decent local estate agent.

My guide to cash house buyers covers the warning signs in full.

So the fastest route was out. What about the second-fastest?

3.2. Selling at auction

Auction wasn't something Claire had seriously considered, and I wouldn't have suggested it here either.

Sellers typically give up 10 to 15% of a property's value at auction, which on this flat means £20,000 to £30,000. That happens for two reasons:

1. Fewer buyers. Most people either can't buy at auction or don't want to, so there's less competition to push the price up.
2. The wrong buyers. The people who do turn up are largely there hunting a bargain. That's the game.

But for a flat like Claire's there's a bigger problem than the discount. The realistic buyers at auction are landlords, and landlords are the one group currently heading for the exit. Purpose-built city flats are exactly the stock being sold off in volume right now, so the auction room asks the people selling flats like hers to buy hers instead.

It makes auction quite an unnatural fit for a sale like this one.

For me, the deciding factor on whether auction's right usually comes down to mortgageability. Auction comes into its own when a property can't get a mortgage, because investors are then the realistic buyers anyway. Claire's flat is perfectly mortgageable, with the cladding/fire-safety paperwork in place, so auction would shrink her buyer pool for no good reason.

I've set out the full trade-offs in my guide to the pros and cons of selling at auction.

Auction wasn't the answer for Claire's flat, but it genuinely suits some sales, especially properties that can't get a mortgage. If you're weighing it up for your own home, I've designed a free quiz that tells you in about 60 seconds whether auction fits your property and your priorities. If it does, I can introduce you to a leading auction house in your area. If it doesn't, I'll tell you what I'd suggest instead.

Hit the button below to get started:

With both quick exits crossed off, one honest question remained before we could settle the plan...

3.3. The last check: keep renting it out instead?

Claire raised this herself, and the case for holding on is real: She's had six easy years of good tenants. If she'd genuinely be happy carrying on as a landlord, and the numbers work after tax and the service charge, there's a fair argument for re-letting and waiting for a better market.

But holding because you expect prices to recover is a different bet, so we looked at the evidence:

• Prices have gone nowhere. On the Land Registry figures we pulled up on the call, the average Birmingham flat was around £149,000 four years ago and around £146,000 today. Basically flat, or down a percent or two.
• Supply says softer, not stronger. With only about one in ten competing flats under offer, my gut feeling is that prices in this specific market are more likely to drift down than up. I can't predict prices, and neither can anyone else, but that's the direction the evidence leans.
• Inflation is the quiet cost. On the Bank of England's inflation calculator, £100 in 2022 buys what roughly £117 does today. So static house prices have meant a real-terms loss of about three or four percent a year, every year they've owned the property.

And there's the number in her mind too: she paid around £200,000, and the flat is worth maybe £170,000. Selling feels like locking in the loss. The uncomfortable truth is that the market has no memory of what you paid. The loss already happened; the only live question is whether the flat is a good asset to hold from today's price.

In my opinion, when the tax and regulation trends are all pushing private landlords out, holding an asset you've already decided you don't want is fighting a losing battle. So Claire committed to the sale, and to doing it properly...

4. The plan: becoming the one flat in ten that sells

That reframe is the foundation of everything below, because each step works better when you're not panicking about the meter running. Here's the plan I gave Claire:

1. Make it look like a show home before the photos are taken.
   I usually tell people to sell as-is, but this is the exception. Claire's likely buyer is a first-time buyer, and what they'll pay a premium for is walking into a place with nothing to do. A few days of tidying and touching up once the tenants leave is worth the effort.
   
   Then make sure the pictures do it justice...
2. Get professional photos.
   Paying a couple of hundred pounds for professional photos can be worth thousands here, because in a crowd of near-identical listings, the photos are one of the few things that make anyone stop scrolling.
3. Shortlist two or three agents by sales agreed, not listings.
   The agent with the most boards up isn't necessarily the one selling. Look at which agents have "sold subject to contract" on comparable one-beds nearby, and shortlist from those.
4. Make the agents prove the price with sold evidence.
   Tell them straight: you don't want to be sitting there at Easter, and you don't want a flattering number that wins your signature. Then ask for evidence on flats that have genuinely sold:
   
   What did comparable one-beds actually sell for, not list for? How long did each take to go under offer? How many viewings and offers did each get?
   
   You're trying to paint a picture with the evidence they give. For example, a bigger, nicer flat that took six months to fetch £140,000 tells you one story. A slightly worse one that sold quickly at £155,000 tells you a completely different one. Get that evidence and you can price to jump the queue rather than join it. It matters enormously: homes priced right at launch find a buyer in around 36 days on average, against 127 days when a cut is needed (Rightmove, July 2026).
5. Refuse the wrong comparable.
   Claire had spotted a flat with the same layout listed at around £140,000, stuck on market for nearly a year already, one price cut done, and still unsold. An agent could easily point at it and say she'll have to go lower.
   
   I suggested pushing back, for two reasons. That flat is being sold with the tenant still in it, which limits it to investors, and investors are both the smallest slice of this market and the people who pay least. And it doesn't appear to include parking, whereas Claire's does. It's a comparable property in some respects, but a totally different proposition in others - and aimed at a completely different buyer. So I wouldn't want it to skew her valuation.
6. Use two estate agents rather than one.
   Against around 40 competing listings, one listing is a needle in a haystack. Two agents means two listings, two databases of buyers, and two teams cross-selling the flat. You'll pay a little more in fees, but when the aim is to saturate a crowded market to try and stand out, we've found it worth the money time and again.
7. Instruct a solicitor the day it lists, not the day you find a buyer.
   Leasehold conveyancing is slow: Rightmove's July 2026 data put leasehold sales at around 169 days to complete once a buyer is found. So get signed up on day one, return every form, and pay for an hour of the solicitor's time to flag what a buyer's solicitor will ask.
   
   Momentum is everything with a first-time buyer. The moment delays creep in, they're back on Rightmove looking at the other 39 flats.
8. Then stay in the game.
   Even a well-set-up sale needs its buyer to enter the market, so keep the flat continuously listed rather than delisting when it goes quiet. Priced off real evidence, presented properly and marketed twice over, there's every argument Claire could see an offer within a month or so. That's possible rather than promised, but it's a world away from the year-long sit she feared.

5. Where Claire landed

Claire started the call half-convinced the flat might not be sellable at all, and wondering whether a company buying it was the painless way out, or if she just had to hold onto it.

By the end, the picture had changed, and not because anything about the flat changed...

The quick exits were crossed off with real numbers attached. The scary market became a measured one: around 40 rivals, one in ten selling, and a specific way to be in that ten.

And her real advantages were finally on the table:

• The cladding paperwork is done. A fair number of the flats she's up against will still have EWS1 questions hanging over them, and that's the kind of thing that stalls a sale for months (sometimes years).
• She'll be selling empty and freshly presented, to first-time buyers, which is a far bigger pool than the investor market much of her competition is stuck chasing.
• The parking space is a genuine differentiator on a city-centre one-bed, and the agents will be told to lead with it.
• No mortgage and no deadline, so she can run the whole plan properly instead of grabbing the first offer.
• She's realistic about price. That's the thing most of her competition can't manage, and in my opinion it's the single biggest reason to think she'll be the one who gets the buyer.

If your own flat is sitting in a crowded market, or you're staring at the sell-or-keep-renting question yourself, this is exactly what my free consultations are for. It's a proper one-to-one call with me, we'll work through your situation together, and you'll leave with a specific plan, the same way Claire did.

It's completely free, no catch, and no hard-sell (often no sell of anything). Book your free consultation here.

Thanks for reading, and good luck with your sale.

Frequently asked questions

1

Should I sell my flat to a "we buy any house" company if lots of identical flats are for sale?

Many of the biggest "we buy any house" companies no longer buy leasehold flats at all, and the ones that will tend to offer around 75% of value - sometimes even less. So a well-set-up estate agent sale usually keeps tens of thousands more in your pocket. I've covered the numbers in how much house-buying companies pay.

2

Is auction a good way to sell a city-centre flat that isn't selling?

For a mortgageable flat with its cladding paperwork in place, auction usually shrinks the buyer pool to bargain-hunting landlords, the very group currently selling this kind of stock, and costs sellers 10 to 15% of value - often more. It suits properties that can't get a mortgage far better. My guide to the pros and cons of selling at auction has the full trade-offs.

3

How do I choose an estate agent when the market is full of similar flats?

Shortlist the agents with sales agreed on comparable flats nearby, not the ones with the most listings or the highest valuation. Then ask each for evidence on flats that genuinely sold: the sold prices, how long each took, and the viewing and offer counts. Price against that evidence rather than against what sits unsold.

4

Is it better to sell a city-centre flat empty or with tenants in it?

Where a one-bed flat's realistic buyer is a first-time buyer, selling it empty and freshly presented usually wins, because a tenanted sale limits you to investors, who are the smallest and lowest-paying slice of the market. If your realistic buyer genuinely is an investor, the answer can flip, so judge it by who actually buys flats like yours.

5

Should I keep renting my flat out instead of selling at a loss?

Carrying on as a landlord makes sense where you'd genuinely be happy doing it and the numbers still work after tax and service charges. Holding purely in the hope prices recover can be a risky bet, particularly because when local prices are flat, inflation erodes the real value by several percent every year. The market has no memory of what you paid - and so there's no guarantee prices get back to that level any time soon.