Have you actually decided to move? Because that changes everything.

Have you actually decided to move? Because that changes everything.

A homeowner said something to us recently that cuts straight to it. Given a figure below what they expected, they didn't argue. They asked whether there are almost two markets right now. The price sellers think their home is worth - and the price buyers will actually pay today.

Yes. That's exactly it.

One price is what the seller has in their head, shaped by what the neighbour got and what they need the house to be worth. The other is what buyers can afford, with a budget and a mortgage limit. Those two numbers have drifted apart and a lot of homes are stuck in the gap. You'll see them on the portals, same price for months and months, barely moving.

That same seller spotted the knock-on. If my house is priced to what it'll really sell for, but the house I want to buy is still up at what its owner hopes, how does anyone move? Nobody does. That's the stuck market, in one question.

Here's the choice underneath it and it's simpler than the noise around it suggests. You can pick a price, or you can pick a timeframe. You don't get both.

Pick a price and you wait for the buyer who agrees, however long that takes. Pick a timeframe and you take what the market offers inside it. What you can't do is name a top price and a short timeframe and expect both. Try it and you get neither. Almost a year on the portal, then a sale below where you'd have landed on day one.

So the real question isn't what your house is worth. It's whether you actually want to move.

If you're not sure, wait. There's no shame in it and no pressure from us. We can't sell a house for someone who hasn't decided they're going and we wouldn't try. A half-hearted sale at a hopeful price is how homes end up sitting for a year. Come back when the answer's a clear yes.

If you do want to move, then you price to move and that's where we earn our place. Before you commit a penny to a Home Report or a photo on a portal, we read the demand. Our register of Quiet Seekers tells us, anonymously, what buyers are actually hunting for right now- and it works like a barometer.

Here's how that barometer decides your route. If there are Quiet Seekers looking for exactly what you've got, we can sell you off-portal, quietly, to the right buyer. That's picking a price. If the demand isn't there, or you need to be moved by a certain date, patience isn't on the table and the sensible move is open market, where you cast the widest net fastest. That's picking a timeframe.

So the barometer doesn't just tell you whether there's a buyer. It tells you which route is right for you. Quiet and patient, or public and quick. Knowing that before you list is worth more than any hopeful number.

Certainty first, then the route, then the move. In that order.

Have you found where you want to go next. That's where Phil and I start.