NovA quick sale and a firm price are different priorities
How to separate a seller's deadline from a firm minimum price, compare the cost of waiting and use real offers without pretending that speed or price can be guaranteed.
This article reflects the named expert’s practical perspective. See NovAsia’s editorial policy for how material is prepared and reviewed.
“I need to sell quickly, but I do not want to discount.” There is nothing contradictory about wanting both. The difficulty begins when they are treated as one condition that the market is expected to satisfy automatically. A deadline is a time constraint. A firm minimum is a price constraint. A seller can hold both, but the plan needs to say what happens if buyers do not meet them at the same time.
That is where I would start. Not with a generic percentage for a “quick sale”, and not with a promise that better marketing will preserve the full asking price. Pin down which event has to happen by which date and what amount the owner actually needs from the transaction.
“Quickly” may mean cash must be available before another purchase. It may mean the owner is leaving Thailand and wants the practical handover completed. It may simply mean the condo is becoming an unwanted responsibility. Those are different pressures. A departure date does not necessarily equal a cash deadline, and a cash deadline does not tell us whether the apartment must be empty on the same day.
The price needs similar precision. An advertised figure does not tell us the owner's required net outcome. Transaction-specific costs and outstanding obligations can matter, and they have to be taken from the actual case rather than a rule of thumb. Once the owner has a real minimum and a real date, the trade-off becomes visible.
Waiting has a cost, but that does not make the first offer correct
An owner who refuses a lower offer is choosing to keep the condo for longer, at least for the moment. That choice can be perfectly rational. It is still useful to calculate what waiting requires.
Take a deliberately hypothetical example. An owner wants at least THB 5 million net and is willing to keep the property for another four months. The condo costs them THB 18,000 per month in the particular combination of holding and management expenses used in our example. A buyer appears now at THB 100,000 below the owner's target. Rejecting that offer does not mean “losing” THB 100,000; the seller may later receive the full target or more. But waiting four months would consume roughly THB 72,000 in the assumed holding costs before we consider any other expense or the uncertainty of the next offer.
That comparison is useful because it replaces a false choice. The owner is not deciding between a THB 100,000 loss and no loss at all. They are choosing between two uncertain paths with different timing and costs.
The arithmetic can reverse in another condo. Perhaps it is occupied under an existing tenancy and the owner is receiving rent while marketing it. Perhaps keeping it creates little practical burden. Perhaps the owner's minimum price is genuinely non-negotiable because selling below it would not solve the reason for selling. Then waiting can be the sensible decision. Pushing the price down is not the objective; the seller has to decide how much speed matters relative to price. Make the cost of each option visible.
Actual buyer behaviour matters more than an argument about what the condo “should” be worth. Asking prices on other listings can help identify competition, but another seller's advertisement is not evidence that a buyer paid that amount. One low offer is not proof that no higher offer will arrive either. I would look at the pattern: are there viewings, repeat objections, offers with similar terms, or directly comparable units competing at the same time? Does this condo have a difference that a buyer can understand, such as condition, layout, furnishing, occupancy status or a more workable transaction timetable?
If the price case depends mainly on how much the current owner spent years ago, it may be weak from the next buyer's perspective. If it depends on a feature that the next buyer can verify and values, the seller has something concrete to defend.
Decide in advance which constraint can move
A sale becomes much easier to manage when the owner defines the decision before an uncomfortable offer arrives. Suppose the target date comes and the best real offer is still below the minimum. What changes first?
One owner may say: “The price is the priority. If I cannot achieve it, I will keep the condo for another six months.” That is a coherent position. Another may say: “I need funds by this date, so after a certain point I am willing to discuss a range.” That is coherent too. A third may discover that the sale itself is optional and decide to rent or simply hold the property instead.
What I would avoid is treating maximum price and minimum time as two guaranteed outputs of the sales process. Marketing can improve presentation and reach. Better documents can reduce avoidable delays. A sensible asking strategy can make the property easier to compare. None of those steps creates a buyer on a predetermined date at a predetermined price.
This is also why I separate “urgent” from “distressed”. An owner can have a real deadline without being willing to accept any offer, and another owner can have no formal deadline but still prefer certainty over months of negotiation. Those are personal constraints, not labels the market gets to assign.
The useful conversation is therefore not “How much do I have to discount to sell quickly?” It is “What outcome do I need, by when, what does waiting cost me, and what will I do if the two priorities conflict?” Once those answers are explicit, a seller can evaluate an offer against their own plan instead of reacting to pressure in the moment.