Pricing your horse for sale.
Points to consider when pricing your horse:
- What did you pay for the horse? Do you think you paid a fair price? What has the horse done since you bought him to increase/decrease in value?;
- Age of horse, and relative experience/performances - a 4yo would not be expected to be a schoolmaster, but a 12yo could be, an 8yo should be promoted with performances, and potential to improve;
- Potential - is in the eye of the beholder and is relative to performance bloodlines, dsicipline and age. A mature horse ie 5yrs and above needs to have a relative degree of experience for his/her age and specialty field;
- Habits/temperament - a horse with one or more bad habits will be more difficult to place, therefore the price needs to take these issues into account. Ideally these issues will be dealt with before the horse is put on the market;
- Bloodlines - is your horse closely related to a successful horse in a particular discipline? This may help you to promote your horse for sale, but will not necessarily make your horse more valuable;
- Blemishes - these may cause a potential purchaser concern ie hoof injuries, splints, conformation faults like pigeon toed, calf kneed etc etc. These may cause soundness issues in the future and may lessen the value of a horse.
These are just some of the issues to consider when putting a price on your horse for sale.
Remember, that for one reason or another, the horse you are selling does not suit your needs and therefore will not necessarily be highly sought after by others and needs to be priced according to the market he/she is suitable for. If you bought your horse to be a quality performance horse, and he has not shaped up this way, it is likely you will not recover your money.
The longer your horse takes to sell, the more you pay. For example,:
- advertising;
- feeding;
- training;
- agistment;
- shoeing;
- competing;
- vets;
- worming;
- rugs/repairs etc etc.
Your horse will need to be kept in good condition to sell at a premium price. You are unlikely to get top dollar for a horse that is not in top condition/working order.
Obviously, people will go to print media, websites etc to find horses of similar age, breed, experience to guage what price to put on their horse, but it is very important to remember that the advertised price is not the selling price of these horses.
Also, well meaning friends are good at putting a price on your horse for sale, but they often don't send buyers your way, or pay your feed bill for you while you wait for a buyer.
Over priced horses will not sell quickly, and then dropping the price may make buyers wonder what is wrong with the horse. Price your horse to sell in a reasonable time.
Buyers are prepared to pay reasonable amounts of money for their next horse. However, it is undoubtedly a buyers market, and buyers are very astute and know exactly what they are looking for. They know the market well and are very tuned into what they consider value for money, and from our experience, they want a very good temperament, and substantial performances and experience relative to the price they are prepared to pay.
Grand Prix Sellers, and Grand Prix Plus Sellers are advised to contact The Horse Broker prior to putting a price on their horse for sale.