Cost of Living Crisis - Can't Sell Up!

[WildB]

DH and I have had our house on the market for a year with little interest and some low ball offers. We had it valued at £450,000 but since dropped to £425,000 and constant arguments with DH about dropping lower! He absolutely won't go lower which means we're stuck in limbo land. Absolutely no plans on another property after the sale but I'm tired of being stuck without any idea of what we're doing. Our family have just outgrown this house and now feels cramped and overcrowded. Going back a few years this would have sold.

Does anyone have advice on what they did to increase the interest in their house when selling? It's just been left to me and my daughter because DH is burying his head in the sand and is completely happy to wait for ever! No chance of him changing his mind, it was a battle for him to agree reduction the asking price by £25,000. Craving some stability, eager to get cracking on making a new home for us!

Sorry you are in this situation OP, it must be tough. If I was in your shoes, I would do the following, take it off the market ASAP, check similar properties on RM, to assess market competition and pricing, list with a new EA, and get listed on RM, as a “new” property. Good luck.

unfortunately, if you are getting no offers then it is the price and price alone.

Better setting a lower price and get more than one potential buyer interested, so two competing offers. this will discover the actual true market price x

This sounds super frustrating, especially your partner's attitude. Are you sure he wants to move and hasn't changed his mind? Also, do you know why he doesn't want to reduce the price (the value of things is fluid, so surely your next house will have reduced in price also)? Can I ask, what were the low ball offers and when did you receive them?

I think you can either take it off and wait for the market to pick up again; try listing with another estate agent (although I'm not sure how much that strategy works for buyers who are constantly checking right move), or reduce the price. Would you move into a new build- some of them offer "part exchanges", might be worth looking into that.

The problem is, the longer a house sits on rightmove, the more unattractive it looks. It makes people think "why hasn't it sold already, there must be something wrong with it".

Unfortunately it is very likely to be the price. The market is so slow atm, stuff just isn't budging even in my area which is usually a red hot market. Interest rates are higher, people have less buying power than before. This might make them just stay out for now or perhaps move to a smaller house than they would otherwise have been able to afford. Lots of houses in our very sought after area have reduced their prices quite a lot. Unfortunately there will be a bunch of covid buyers who are in negative equity right now and any buyer on your property is not going to want to pay more than it's really worth right now. I'd recommend getting a new valuation done even with a new estate agent to try get this home to your husband.

Or as pp said new builds often have part exchange on their properties

Have you had any viewings? If sp, what feedback did you get?

Hi OP

Sorry to be blunt but your property must be overpriced.

Why not try, "offers above" and decluter even further if possible and lick of paint, brighten up etc. As the weather improves and interest rates appear to have peaked but no gurantees, things may get better

If you are not getting any interest, or the interest you get is is offers significantly below asking, then the price is wrong.

A house is only worth what someone will pay, not what an estate agent tells you. I think your husband needs to consider that.

If you can't/won't drop the price do you have option to extend?

If you can't sell, and he won't agree to drop the price, can you extend or accept that you need to wait until the market picks up.

It sounds like you dh is happy to stay where you are for the time being.

If it feels cramped and over crowded I would suggest doing a serious declutter.

The mood music for houses generally is not good, and so if you can do a major declutter, get rid of a lot of stuff, into atorage if necessary. Tidy up the garden, put flowers out front, make it look really really nice.

It might not help - the price is usually the main thing - but it will feel better living there.

Nothing is shifting where we are right now either. If we sold now we would have to go into negative equity to get rid as there are four other houses on our road in a similar price bracket, all been on the best part of 8 months.
We would also like to move-cost of living and mortgage term running out at just the wrong time are making our house too expensive for us-but we will be stuck here a while yet I think!

You're obviously putting it on sale for too high. Houses will sell if they are priced properly.

Reducing the price 25k won't help. Because if anyone wanted to purchase it at 25k less they would have offered that already. They would even have offered 50k less if that is what they wanted to pay

I feel your pain.
we were trying to sell the family home since May, didn’t even have any offers. Other similar properties around us also not selling even when they reduced.

I agree with taking it off the market and reassessing. Things go stale when they’re on Rightmove so long.

price is really hard because I have seen people reduce and it still not make a difference.

we did a hefty reduction and it didn’t help.

Reduce the price but relist on RM so it shows as a new listing rather than "price reduced"
Some people may look over their price bracket with the hopes of a "cheeky offer"
But I'd say most sensible people only look at houses 10k over their budget and then if you reduce but your house has been on a market a while people will wonder why.
Dropping 25k will open you up to a different market, maybe you'll get viewings and people will offer lower and that's when your partner needs to put his sensible head on.
You need to assess if your going to find something bigger that will be more expensive to buy and how you plan to bridge the gap in prices if your significantly reducing the price of the house you are selling.
Does your partner really want to move is this why he's being stubborn?
It's not a buyers market at the minute and unfortunately people are scared what's going to happen with interest rates, factor in cost of living and people are tightening the purse strings unfortunately.

We bought for £241k 20 years ago.
According to houseprice.io % rises, ours should be worth about £365k
Neighbour has an identical house to ours which she listed for 6 weeks ago for £350k.
Neighbour hasn't had a single viewing.
I am thinking we could be in for a very long wait to sell ours.

It's such a frustrating position to be in. We tried to sell last year, had 2 viewings in 5 months, reduced price, just nothing, and reducing the price further would have really affected what we could buy. In the end we took it off the market and are currently extending and staying put!

How much did you pay for it and when