More than 50% of the house on Rightmove are empty…

[TheLightSideOfTheMoon]

No possessions. Empty houses.

A few are retirement homes so understandable why they’re empty but most are average houses.

I look regularly because I’m nosy AF. Never seen this before. Maybe the odd one but never this many.

Is there something weird going on with the housing market? Or have people started moving out due to viewing, etc.

Just in my local area of West Wiltshire, I’ve not looked at other towns.

I disagree, I'm looking daily and see a few, but not many. Bungalows are often unloved in, due to obvious reasons of old age/death, but also because developers are snapping them up 'doing them up' & making good money on them.

But family homes, no, not seeing many at all that aren't being lived in.

(SE England)

It tends to be the older houses with dated decor that are empty here (North West), so that’s quite sad, really. There are a few houses on my road that are for sale because their elderly owners have died or moved out to residential care or to live with relatives.

I am getting very fed up with thinking 'how much???'

A small 3bed, tce, with a half postage stamp garden, in a run down area (not bad area, just run down) with work needed & B&Q needing replacing, going for £450,000. Absolute bloody madness!

Well yes they are the houses on sale. House sales from divorce, separation, care homes or unfortunately death. A few from movement in the market and maybe people are staying put.

In my area there were a lot that sold last year for cheaper than usual as they needed a lot of work. So many of them have went back on the market this year for double the price completely renovated. They're empty as the people that bought them haven't lived in them, they've just gotten a good deal, done the work then sold on and with the housing market the way it is just now they've made a good profit.

There also is unfortunately a lot my way from people that have died and it's their families selling or people that have moved to sheltered accommodation/homes

I can't say I've noticed that at all and tend to look daily (south east). Genuinely don't recall seeing one recently, more often than not I find it's hard to see potential there are so many possessions and lack of effort to dress anything.

I saw a few empty houses prior to buying our current home in 2020 and that was either usually a probate sale post house clearance or a 'flipped' house that had gone through an entry level renovation from a developer or just someone giving it a go and then selling for huge amounts more despite the finish being fairly average to poor.

Maybe there are more repossessions, sadly?
Or people desperate for a quick sale. When we put ours on the market we were keen to sell quickly as rarely we'd seen the perfect house (very long list of must-haves!) and so we put almost everything into storage to make it easier to sell.

Not round here! I was looking (nosy) a few days ago and none were empty.

50%? Have you counted?! I keep an eye on nearby properties and none are empty. Maybe it’s an area thing.

Within 3 miles of my house there are 63 properties on the market or STC, 2 are commercial, at least 2 are established B&Bs and only 2 are obviously un-lived in (one was the home of a very old lady who went into a care home some time ago and had presumably now passed away).

When I was house hunting recently every single house was occupy. I think it really depends on size of house and area

There is a huge difference between living in a house that hasn’t her renovated for 50 years or more and one that is refurbished. It costs a lot of money nowadays to do even minor improvements let alone major/extensions.

Just had another look in our area, haven't looked for a couple of weeks, theres quite a few empty but not that many.

However, bit of a long story - just before covid, so just over 2 years ago we were planning work to our house and at one point we might have had to move out so I looked at the rental market quite a bit for a few months until we had it established we wouldn't need to move out for 6 months. Anyway, looking today, I'm 90% certain several of those empty properties being advertised for sale with no chain are ones that were for rent back then. Could something have happened to your areas rental market and investors are dumping properties?

I don’t believe it is 50%. But as for why, there are a whole lot of people who have been evicted/lost their homes due to covid, and there will be a whole lot more.

Sales of previous rental properties as no longer so attractive to be a landlord, deaths/care homes and developers renovating and selling on.

Lots of landlords are selling rental properties. Ideally the property needs to be empty to be available for sale.

A lot of them around here are ex rentals, where the landlord has turfed tenants out in order to sell.

things like probate etc have been greatly delayed over the last couple of years due to covid etc, plus people being not able to get back (especially from abroad) to clear the house out etc might mean now that covid restrictions have eased people can get on with selling the house?

We recently sold for a relative because they had gone in to care with no hope of return.