Is anyone trying to sell a London flat at the moment?

[shesaidshesleavingonasunday]

Specifically, a flat with no garden. Ours has been on since March just before lockdown with sporadic viewings and no offers. Price lowered as much as it can go. Totally de cluttered.

The problem is not the flat, the problem is the market. If you look at rightmove, no similar flats within a 3 mile radius of mine have sold since the beginning of August. None. We are talking about hundreds of flats.

I am honestly terrified and devastated in equal measure right now.

Please don't tell me oh everyone is moving out of London for the countryside, bla bla bla - I know that full well. It doesnt change how awful I feel about it.

Anyone in the same situation and want to commiserate?

According to the Express

Post-lockdown, London and the south east are the only two regions to see the lowest annual rise in asking prices, with the London figure up two per cent to £629,000.
Figures from the Land Registry show the average price of a flat in London has fallen by 0.2 percent.
London has 69 percent more properties coming to market, with the south east at 60 percent and the east at 56 percent.

We were looking to move outwards (would have done it in a few yrs anyway) but have held off as unsure where to go as remote working has given us more options. However in the last month or so our area of Z3 has had lots of properties come to market which is definitely suppressing prices.

I've not been to Hither Green for a few yrs, does it have lots of restaurants? I remember a fairly small high street with a couple of cafes & one big pub that was nice.

It has quite a few local ones now, yes.

Mainly I was talking about restaurants in London rather than HG specifically though.

What do you class as the commuter belt? I think of zones 5-6

Nothing in a zone!!

I’m in north Lewisham. Houses and garden flats seem to be selling very quickly, other stuff not at all. I’m friendly with a local estate agent who says similar. I also (quietly) think that the people selling now are likely to be those that bought at the top of the market pre-kids and are now looking for a bigger place, which limits what they can reduce their asking prices by. And then there’s Brexit round the corner, and the end of furlough.

I’m not sure OP. There’s no harm in trying again come Sept.

Mainly I was talking about restaurants in London rather than HG specifically though.

But why is traveling into London from zone 3 for example so much easier than from the commuter belt?

Nothing in a zone!!

I always think it's the outer zones that tend to have that little high street strip of 1 Chinese, 1 Indian, Chippy etc whereas places outside there often have more bustling high streets eg St Albans, Reading which I thought were classed as commuter belt.

I think what Lurker101 said up thread is so true. The London market is so fickle. Looking at Rightmove I can see what you mean OP there are an abundance of flats on the market in your price range. It looks fairly saturated at the moment.
Give it time and it will all change again in the future. I quite understand how you want to move now but try and stop making yourself feel so ill. It will happen for you in the future but now may just not be the right timing within the market for all the reasons listed on this thread. But it will happen at some point. Everything could all change again early next year. And yes of course lots of people want to live in London and the surrounding areas especially when young. They don't all want to move out to the country! I'm in the country now but bloody hell I would have hated it in my twenties, thirties and forties.

I always think it's the outer zones that tend to have that little high street strip of 1 Chinese, 1 Indian, Chippy etc whereas places outside there often have more bustling high streets eg St Albans, Reading which I thought were classed as commuter belt.

Completely agree with this, plus there’s a lot of other places like these; Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells, Hayward’s Heath. All with fairly quick and direct access to central London by train. I’m guessing it’s these kind of towns which might be swaying the FTBs out of London....(the ones that maybe would have purchased those two bed apartments).

Lol this is getting hilarious. Have people actually been to outer London?

Kingston is in zone 5/6 and you’d probably find 100 places to eat out in the town centre. Richmond, Sutton, Croydon, Bromley etc all have large town centres with plenty of restaurants. Even the ‘villagey’ place near me has at least 10 independent restaurants and a couple of chain ones.

Re what’s outer London and what’s commuter belt: if it’s in London then it’s London, and if it isn’t in London but many people work in London, it’s the commuter belt.

And it’s possible to be in zone 5 and in Surrey at the same time because Stoneleigh is.

Lol this is getting hilarious. Have people actually been to outer London?

Well yes I have, but I wasn't actually talking about Outer London. I was talking about commuter towns.

Places like Flitwick, Haywards Heath, Crawley, Woking...etc

@JoJoSM2 Yes some paces eg Kingston, Richmond & Croydon have pretty busy town centres that are destinations in themselves during the day/night but there are loads of places in the outer zones that fit my description.

I wouldn't include Sutton in the above. It's not particularly great for shopping or restaurants although yes don't worry the whole of MNs knows that you live in the best place in not just London but the whole of England! 🤣

Surely @Juno231 it would be better and far cheaper to drop your flat price and sell rather than rent it and buy another property?

Creepy Crawley 😂

I think the desire to wfh will turn. I know lots of firms are now being told staff morals is low so I don't think many companies will go beyond 1-2 days working from home.

We are hoping to sell our 2-bed shortly(ish). We are in telegraph hill, a Victorian conversion but with a garden and balcony. No idea how things are selling here.

I hope this is just a blip OP.

*morale

@Lightsabre as I said - we have dropped it. Thing is, first time buyers have been hit the most by the banks now insisting on 15-20% deposits and the market is flooded by ex airbnb flats/ex student accommodation flats and people now wanting to move into bigger apartments/houses. In my area there's shed loads of them on the market.

I would also disagree with it being far cheaper - with the stamp duty holiday the stamp duty on the next property is pretty decent and it's not like the equity we have in the flat now will disappear, we'll just recoup it at a later time. Which reminds me, we can claim back the double stamp duty if we sell the flat in the next three years anyway.

@lovib

I didn’t realise Croydon was a destination.

I don’t view Sutton as a ‘destination’ either but that doesn’t change the fact that the locals can enjoy lobster, steak, jackfruit burgers or whatever else as there is a lot of choice.

@JoJoSM2 it is for some, far more so then Sutton is. You would probably call Croydon "stabby" though, I'm sure you've used that description about certain areas before?

@lovib I mean to be fair I know people living in Croydon who would also refer to it as stabby. Much like I referred to Shadwell as stabby when I lived there - never seen as much blood as I did living there

@shesaidshesleavingonasunday For white Brits, moving out to the countryside in their 30s is really common and that was the case pre covid. However for ethnic minorities this is not the case which is why it is difficult to find a diverse nice, liberal, cosmopolitan town in the commuter belt, Which is why white brits are only 44% of the population in London.

I don't really see that trend changing. I don't really think ethnic minorities (myself included) really want to be the token minority. I think these people would stay in London. my MIL has worked from home for the past 30 years and has remained firmly rooted in London even when it meant staying in a 1 bed flat with 3 children in the 1990s as she needed her kosher supermarkets, her synagogue. She upgraded eventually but she chose to buy the flat as a newly wed as that was all she could afford in London at that time. You just need to find 1 person/family like that.

You don't have to just move to the countryside though & some areas of London are a lot more diverse then others eg Tower Hamlets & Newham vs Havering & Bromley

My parents are immigrants but I would definitely move to outer zones & places like St Albans or Bristol. My parents largely chose Z2 London because that's what they could afford & they didn't know anything else.

I have less of a pull to move out because I live round the corner from my parents & DH is also a Londoner so his parents are close too. Very helpful with small dc!

@pollypi I agree about St Albans/Bristol. but St Albans isn't that much different price wise from the area of north london that my MIL and myself both bought our homes in. I am not much closer to affording a substantially larger home that what I already have so would rather stay in Z3 as even if i am working from home, there is still value in being closer to town. Might be more tempted to move if I could get 2 X the space for the same money but thats really not the case for St Albans. My budget would only allow for a bigger flat as £400k doesn't go very far there.

Would be hard to commute from Bristol to London even a few times a week and also seems quite expensive relative to local incomes.

But maybe if I was white british, i might have considered places in kent or essex which are much cheaper. places like margate are very popular with the ex london crowd.

I have no advice but, I just wanted to send some sympathy your way. We are buying at the moment and I’m awake until four in morning stressing about it. I’m sorry you are having such a hard time.

Just for laughs you could live in a converted church in Cornwall, complete with a spire, pulpit and graveyard www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-96476195.html

@shesaidshesleavingonasunday

Nothing to do with the new EWS1 certificate is it?

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-8616399/amp/Red-tape-nightmare-stops-millions-selling-homes.html