Change house price

[RobEmily]

We put our house on the market on Wednesday last week at £850k, an amount suggested by three estate agents. We had 5 viewings at the weekend, no offers, someone said they felt it was worth £780-£785k.

We have found a house we love, we need £840k to make it work comfortably but could possibly go as low as £810k if the people selling the other house took an offer / we took out a longer mortgage term (30 as opposed to 25 years). Really we want £825k.

We are worried we’ll lose the house we love. The estate agent is pressuring us to market at £800k-£850k I said that will just make people offer below £800k or at £800k, which we can’t accept. He seems to think they would be able to push an offer up from there but it will get us more actual buyers through the door. He also said it’s better to drop now than in a few weeks when listing has gone stale as people would be more likely to low ball then.

Wondering what people think - should we lower now, hold firm or lower just a little?

Lowering it might generate interest. Doesn’t sound like you’re getting anywhere at the moment and presumably the house you want won’t hang around forever.

On market last Wednesday. Five viewings this weekend. It's only Monday.

Have the people viewing said they're not going to offer or have they just not made an offer yet? Five viewings straight up is a lot. People were interested enough in your house at that price to come to see it. Three agents said to market it at the price you have - it can't be far wrong.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone drop the price this quickly. It'll look desperate or as though something is wrong.

It's really hard, but sounds like you have made the mistake of looking too much/too seriously before you have an offer.
I would hold firm on the price for now though, far too early to be dropping the price.
Do the EAs initial valuations match up with recent sold prices for similar properties.
We did find 2 estate agents value us too highly- think its how they get you to sign with them, on the promise of what they can sell your house for etc.

It’s only been on a week, not even!

Not gunna lie, I’m looking at houses worth 650/700 knowing I will offer 40 k less! It’s a buyers market not a sellers atm

Well the feedback is you've priced it too high, so it's unlikely to sell, and you'll miss out on the house you want anyway.

It's a bit early to lower the price OP.

You don’t need to lower yet !
Listings don’t go ‘stale’ as such…each day there will be new people looking for their perfect property ! If it hasn’t had any interest or offers after 3 months then yes, consider reducing…but if you believe your property is worth the asking price, just be patient! It’s a waiting game so very often.

Feedback from just one person. I wouldn’t take it as gospel.

We were in this exact same position a few months back. We did lower ours and I’m hindsight wished we had waited a bit longer- a house near us no where near as nice we since learnt sold for more - we were just impatient as we really wanted our new house. Do I regret it no- not at all, we’re in our dream house and would have been devestated if we lost it. Could we have held out a bit longer - yeah we could have. It really depends how much you love the other house.

Have you spoken to the sellers of the other house? Will they accept a lower offer?

If you drop yours now and they say no, you can hardly go back up again.

Don't lower it yet. You need to give it more time. And thats a ridiculous amount to lower it by, within a week. You will just look desperate. If you've got no offers in 4 weeks then consider a reduction of 2% or up to £20k but no more. Be prepared to accept an offer, bit you can make it condional on you finding somewhere yourself that you love. Don't rush into the first house you see. Really you should hold off on viewing before you get a realistic offer on yours, otherwise you are just wasting everyone's time. You've already had interest and viewings, so hang in there. Ask your agent what they are doing to push a sale. Premium listing on Rightmove. Ringing it out to suitable prospective buyers. Larger advert in their window. All things any decent estate agent will be doing. Get a friend to register interest in something similar to your property, and see what interaction they get.

This is a difficult decision, but I don’t think it’s the right time to lower the price yet, as it’s still too early. I may consider switching to ‘offers over £825k’ in a week or two, mainly because you are in a rush and because having 5 viewings with no offers might not be a positive sign. Were the all the viewers proceedable buyers? Have they all confirmed already they won't offer? What are the reasons?
This would influence my decision.

I would say, your house has not been on the market long and you haven't had enough viewings, to say the house is going to be worth less to almost everyone.

I don't think it's very likely that you will get someone who was talking about £780k to go to £810k. If you can get a quick sale to stop you losing the house you love, at a price that still lets you buy that house, it's worth dropping it even to £780k, but if that price is too little to get the house you love, then you will lose that house by dropping the price even if it gives you a quick sale. If that is the case, then you might as well hold on for a bit and see if you can get closer to your original price, because you can't get the house you love anyway, and you might get more money giving you more overall choice of houses.

As someone who has had their house on the market for 4 weeks... we have had 6 viewings, and just received an offer, which we've accepted! So the number of viewings isn't everything. The market isn't great (where I am anyway) for higher value properties, so it is really a buyers market and lots are being reduced. What is your other feedback saying? One has said overpriced, but what about the other four viewings? What was their feedback? And were they even proceedable viewers?

It’s only been a week and you’ve had viewers, I would wait a few more weeks.

I seriously think six days in is a bit soon and if you reduce it now, you will have some people re-viewing, knowing you are desperate to sell and the 780 or lower being offered.
You also sound like you saw a house for sale and viewed it before even listing yours, never a good idea unless you are planning to put down a hefty deposit, prior to selling yours, in the hope that someone will buy at near the listed price.
Don’t forget you need to cover all the additional expenses that go into buying and selling a property.
My parents moved quite often and eventually bought without needing a mortgage at all!.
They moved, improved and walked away with their profit every time.
My father believed in patience and timing and never put a property on the market at this time of year!.

Really manage the estate agents. They are all overvaluing right now. The know the stock is low, uncertainty around budget, jobs, and economy is stalling. They are getting exclusivity and gurzumping on price all the time (going lower and lower) and putting pressure on.

Sorry your experiencing this. Partners been through it recently and he just agrees with them and lets them walk all over him.
Try to manage them effectively.

Take a beat. It's been a weekend. I'd be asking them why are they so keen to drop so quickly and did they purposely overvalue it just to get your business!

I think most of them have said they won’t be, one went on holiday so they haven’t heard from that couple yet.

We did some market research and think it adds up, there’s not much on at the moment but it matches the asking price of some recently sold similar properties. In fact ours is bigger in sq ft than those houses, but I can see some of them have other points such as a bigger garden.

This is what we assume people would do as well, and prepared to accept less. I find it hard to believe in this market that we’ll get higher than £800k if we advertise at £800-£850…

Thanks - we do love it. We’ve had an eye on the market for nine months and this is the first thing that has got us remotely interested. We won’t be moving if we don’t get it.

We’ve viewed 30 properties, this is the first one we are interested in. If we don’t get it, we won’t be moving.

Yes, two people wanted to convert the garage and felt it was too small - it’s in the wrong position as well really I think for that. One person wanted to convert rooms downstairs for a bedroom and downstairs bathroom and said the configuration doesn’t work, agree it wouldn’t.

Then the people who said £785k. They are renting on our road and we know friends of theirs who said that other than our house they’d only be looking at stuff under £800k so I assume this is just their budget amount. My husband showed them round and they’d been looking for ages and said everything in their budget was too small but ours was the right size so I think maybe their wants and budget doesn’t add up.

Two people the agent hadn’t spoken to but said “they had just started looking” so she obviously didn’t feel an offer was likely.