Selling in a reasonable time frame is every genuine vendor's aim, second only to selling for the highest possible price. Yet most agents say that the hardest sale to make is the one that comes along in the first days of marketing, especially if the vendors are inexperienced.

Those who are unaware of the mechanics of the marketing process reason that if Purchaser One is prepared to pay $x in the first week of marketing, then Purchaser Two will pay $x+ next week. They say things like, " If the first ad brings in this sort of response, what will the second one bring?" - as if price increases with time and exposure.

Many vendors don't realise that a property attracts the greatest amount of attention when it is first presented. All the purchasers that have been looking for their ideal home for weeks and months converge eagerly on a new listing.

New listings attract numbers and numbers mean competition. Competition creates the climate that generates the highest offers. This is the time when a purchaser who falls in love with a property will be afraid that someone else will snap it up before they do. The longer a property is on the market at a given price, the more the sense of competition fizzles out and the more likely subsequent purchasers are to feel they have plenty of time to make up their minds.

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The feeling that time is on their side gives purchasers the psychological edge. Basically they feel they can afford to offer less with more chance of getting a bargain.

Properties that no longer attract inspections from "qualified" (ready-to-buy) buyers are commonly referred to as "stale." Once all the "qualified" purchasers have inspected a property, the number of inspections decreases and those who do inspect are new to the marketplace and have yet to do their research. Naturally enough, new purchasers are unwilling to commit themselves until they have done their homework.

In the final analysis, the vendor's two main aims are not separable. They are two sides of the same coin. Selling for the highest price usually means getting serious about that early offer. Vendors who turn down early offers often regret their refusal to negotiate when they discover that further down the track they end up settling for less.