The journal.

What we learned on the floor, written by the people who were there.

What we got wrong12 September 20267 min · 1 640 words31 rue Saint-Dominique · Paris 7e

We priced a flat in Saint-Dominique too high in March. Here is what it cost.

Seven weeks, eleven hours kept, no offer — and a cut of €140 000 we should have taken in the third week. The owner has read this piece and asked us to publish it with her flat named.

Camille Roussel Camille RousselAdvisor · Desk 07 · since 2019 · answers in 1 h 10

Her eleven figures Send this to someone

The errorWe used our comparables’ prices and ignored how long they had taken to sell.The delayThree buyers said the same sentence in March; we cut in May.The cost€140 000, and two of the four buyers bought elsewhere.

The Saint-Dominique drawing room, photographed in March — The drawing room in March, before the first hour · photographed 9 March by Camille RousselStraightened only

We put 31 rue Saint-Dominique on the floor on 14 March at €1 950 000. It was a good flat — 118 m², third floor, two windows onto the courtyard and a kitchen somebody had spent money on properly. The owner had bought in 2011, wanted to move to Lyon in the autumn, and had been told a number by two other desks before she came to us. Ours was the middle one, which is the number I want to talk about.

I arrived at that price the way advisors usually do: three comparable sales in the same three streets, an adjustment for the courtyard aspect, and a small addition for the kitchen. What I did not do was weigh the two comparables that had themselves taken five months to sell. I used the prices they eventually achieved and ignored the time it took them to achieve it. That is the whole of the error, and it is not a subtle one.

The three comparables · rue de Verneuil, 112 m²€1.88 m154 daysrue de Grenelle · 121 m²€2.02 m149 daysrue du Bac · 109 m²€1.79 m38 days

Weeks one to three

Eleven buyers saved the home in the first fortnight and four asked for an hour. I kept all four. Three of them said a version of the same thing in the room, which I wrote into their reports that evening: the flat was worth what we were asking, but not more than the two others they were also seeing that week. Nobody said the price was wrong. They said it was not better than its alternatives, which is a different sentence and a more dangerous one.

By the fifth week we were the only people in the building who still believed the price.Hours 2, 3 and 4 said the same“Fairly priced, but so are the two we saw on Thursday.” — 22 March

By week five the saves had stopped arriving and the hours had stopped being asked for. I wrote to the owner on 18 April to say the market was quiet in the 7th in April, which was true, and not the reason. The honest letter would have said: three buyers have now told me the same thing and I have not acted on it.

What the cut cost

We cut to €1 810 000 on 4 May — seven weeks in, four weeks after the third buyer had effectively told us to. Two of those four buyers had bought something else by then. It went under offer on 22 May and sold on 14 June at €1 790 000, which is 2.4 % under the cut price and 8.2 % under where we started.

Asked, 14 March€1.95 mThe middle of three numbersCut, 4 May€1.81 mLetter signed the same daySold, 14 June€1.79 m8.2 % under the askingWeeks the cut was late4Two buyers bought elsewhere

What we changed

Two things, both dull. Every comparable now carries its days-on-floor beside its price, and the figure appears on the sheet the owner signs. And when three buyers say the same sentence in three separate reports, the desk head sees it without me raising it — reports are read across, not only down.

The owner asked that this be published with her flat named. Her words, in the letter she sent on 19 June: “You told me the truth in June. I would have liked it in April.”

Why this is on our own journalThree of the twenty-seven pieces here are about something we got wrong. They stay published, dated, and named to the home — the same rule as our surveys, and for the same reason.

The pledge line this broke“What I am not asked, I tell you anyway if it would change your mind.”All six lines

Five letters about this piece

What people wrote back.

Letters on this piece5Disagreed with us2Median answer1 h 00Edited or removed0Ninety-eight letters this year · nine pieces began as one

Sophie MarchandBuyer · works with Camille13 September

I read this the morning after you sent me a report a day late, which made it a strange thing to read. It is the right piece to have published. What I would still like to know is whether the third buyer ever told you in writing, or only in the room — because if it was in writing, the four weeks look worse.

Camille RousselWrote the piece13 September · 40 min

In writing, in her report of 22 March. You are right that it looks worse, and it is the reason the reports are now read across the desk rather than only by me.

Grégoire LantierOwner · 14 rue de Verneuil13 September

My flat is one of your comparables, and I remember perfectly well that it took five months. I am glad to see the days printed beside the price now — it was the only number nobody wanted to say out loud when you valued mine.

Hélène FaureDisagrees14 September

This reads well but it is still a piece in which the desk decides what its own mistake was. The owner lost €160 000 against the first asking price and you have written 1 640 words about your comparables method. The honest version is shorter: you told her what she wanted to hear in March.

Camille RousselWrote the piece14 September · 1 h 05

That is a fair reading and I am not going to argue it away. I did want the mandate, and the middle number was the comfortable one. The method paragraph is how it happened; your sentence is why.

Julien BrunBuyer · bought elsewhere in April15 September

I was one of the two who bought something else. For what it is worth, the flat was never overpriced to me — it was just the third-best of three that week. Had the cut come in week three I would probably have offered on it.

Camille RousselWrote the piece15 September · 55 min

Which is the whole cost of the four weeks, put more plainly than I managed. Thank you for writing it down.

Marc DelaunayDisagrees16 September

Publishing this is good for you. You get credit for candour on a mistake that cost somebody else money. I would find it more convincing if the owner were compensated rather than quoted.

Camille RousselWrote the piece16 September · 1 h 20

She was not compensated, and I am not going to pretend the publication is a substitute. What she asked for was that it be published with the flat named, and that is what we have done.

How letters are handled

Answered by the advisor who wrote the piecePublished in full, dated, with your name as you gave itNever edited to be kinder to usNever removed once answered — not even the hard ones

Two letters on this piece disagreed with usBoth are above, unedited, with our answers. Of the ninety-eight letters this year, nine of the twenty-seven pieces began as one.How we answer letters

Read firstThe three surveys that cost their owners money.Three homes where the survey we commissioned found something the owner did not know, what each one cost, and why all three still sold.

Camille Roussel8 min

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