House NOT selling... AIBU?

[AllTheGin84]

HELP.

Our house has been on the market for 15 weeks... had an offer 4 weeks in at full asking price (woah!), then their chain collapsed and they are no longer selling.

Then we changed agent, went back on the market and dropped price by £30,000 (575,000 - £545,000).

5 viewings in a week, no offers, no interest in buying... WHY? WHY DOES NO ONE WANT MY HOUSE?

Its clean, ridiculously tidy, plain and neutral, lovely comments... but no on wants to even put an offer in!!!!! We have a viewing today, tomorrow and Saturday. What can I do?????

HELP ME MN, I AM DESPERATE TO SELL. This is seriously affecting my mental health.

OP your EA tells you not to put it on RM. Then tells you lots of positive feedback from today's viewing. I'm not too sure I'd be trusting what they say.

On The Market is used by many agents now. RightMove isn’t a monopoly.

If it were me I would certainly rent out the house at the moment rather than sell in a shitty market......

Me too. And whatever happens with Brexit, rental income is unlikely change massively, whereas with house prices, almost anything could happen.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz only mentioned RM after the feedback. Booked in for 10am tomorrow morning... fingers crossed.

House to go on RM after this weeks viewings. Apparently you can see the history of a house on RM???

On The Market is used by many agents now. RightMove isn’t a monopoly.

It depends on the area. My town everyone is on rightmove, 75% Zoopla and only the big nationals are on OTM also.
London is apparently more Zoopla led as the station distance etc is better.

The only time I went into an estate agent was to handover ID for our purchase and to put a rocket up our estate agent when our buyer went AWOL.

surely making a profit is good investment as time goes on? If everyone thought like that, then my Grandad who bought his house in the 60s would be happy selling it for £30k, regardless of inflation?

But the value of a house is what someone is willing to pay for it at that time. It can go up or down. Maybe you can make a profit, or neutral, or a loss. Houses aren't guaranteed to go up in value - in fact they have fallen spectacularly in the past.

With the political uncertainty around Brexit and you wanting to sell quickly, you will probably need to price for less than if you could wait (although how long for Brexit is anyone's guess).

When my Grandads house in Erith, Kent went up for sale last year after he died, the first agent my not very savvy uncle used didn’t use rightmove and there were two viewings in two months. Switched agents, onto rightmove it went and sold within 3 weeks. This was a 3 bed semi doer-upper in the 350k region.

Yes you can see history of a house on rightmove and other places. Try googling your own house using no. And post code and you will probably find it somewhere. Buyers are very internet savvy these days. I would see what happens with the second viewing and if no luck then get it on the internet. It s about clicking a button although can take a few hours to go live. I assume you have an accurate floor plan as well because that is very important these days. Good luck.

Price and advertising, nowt magic at all twas allways thus!..

@Glitteryfrog I thought On The Market was launched by and owned by an otherwise unconnected selection of EAs, specifically to try and break the RM monopoly?

Did the OP say why they'd changed agents? Fingers crossed, but I'm still suspicious.

Sorry, I meant that in response to @BubblesBuddy 's comment, which @Glitteryfrog also commented on

Good luck OP. I’m sure you know this already, but you need to have insurance in place for you from the minute you arrive and your baby (insure now so it’s in place for when the baby comes). I believe you will only be insured to the basic level as you are new in the country - it’s still v good though.

@EvelynShaw Thank you, yes all sorted :)

We changed agents because they didn't even suggest a price drop when it wasn't selling @Lochroy. We finished our 12 week period and changed after having multiple valuations.

We also probably became a nightmare, calling all the time - asking why no more viewings etc (no viewings in 3 weeks), they just said be patient. It was time to change as the trust was gone... and became quite fractured. I actually felt really bad as I was quite agitated with them. New EA seemed really good - super blunt about things.

Have you checked what the valuation of your house on Zoopla or similar is OP?
There are also sites that track sold values in your area which can be useful to compare with what people were originally asking for.

Buyers aren't stupid and they follow Rightmove closely. They see when a property disappears and reappear as a new property with a lower price.

@dreichuplands yes, but on Zoopla our house is showing at £600,000!!! Lol.

I’m not convinced about Zoopla price estimates - my house is valued £50k lower than the identical 5 yr old semi next door - only because the new build purchasers sold to us after 2 years.

Anyway, I’d be tempted to let the viewings run over the weekend, get some feedback and then review - your agent could put it back on RM on Monday.

Zoopla is a load of bollocks though

Zoopla is a load of bollocks though

Yes our worth is the same as when we bought the place 20 odd years ago!..

Zoopla isn't as accurate as checking what houses have actually sold for but if it has a higher value that is going to help not hinder OP.

Zoopla is indeed bollocks. It’s showing our house at £100k more than we could ever hope to get for it. No idea where they get their figures from, I suspect the Diane Abbott school of maths.

Zoopla is a load of bollocks though

Thirded. In my road there are 2, 3, 4 and 5 bed houses. Some of those larger ones have sold more frequently than the smaller ones, hence my little shack is priced up as if it was a mansion!

Definitely get your proeprty on Rightmove and On the market asap.

My mum (who is not even looking to move) checks rightmove regularly and tells me the prices houswes in her road are up for.

Her friend has recently put a house on the market for way more than it is worth (Estate Agent shmoozed her with promises of good (too good) selling price). I had recommended an agent (a personal friend of 20 years and very trustworthy and hardworking) but the other agent promised the highest sale price so she went with that one. Time will tell. No viewings of her house yet.

You can also check actual sold prices on the Land Regsitry website but that is historic and takes approx 3 months to filter through so the info would be a bit out of date.