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?

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It would look like you’re desperate and may attract a lot of chancers who will think you’re going to accept a lot lower just to get a sale , which are just wasting your time .
If you’re getting people to view then you’re at least at a starting point . Hold it out … you can always lower the price but you can’t higher it if it goes stale again in a few months …

Ridiculously soon to lower the price or the agent was having a laugh with the original price. And taking the opinion of one buyer who knew they couldn't afford it and would like you to reduce massively is not sensible, you really need to give it a few weeks, you've told the agent you're willing to look at offers so if people are interested they can make a reasonable offer.

in this market - if I saw a house for £800-850 I would be offering £800

Matching the asking price of recently sold properties ignores the fact that they probably sold for well below asking price.

Sale prices are all that matters. Asking prices are simply adverts.

Around here plenty of people asking for 700k are dealing at below 650k. The initial price are unrealistic due to EA tactics to win business along with seller naivety.

Price low, attract multiple bids and then let them fight it out to achieve market value.

That would be a generous offer in the current climate. 750-775 more realistic.

The notion that 3 EAs can’t all be wrong is ridiculous. They are pretty much forced to give inflated valuations to win business as sellers are often not realistic. It’s why EAs want exclusivity as well.

I am old so have been in this type of market before where prices are slowly deflating. It seems logical that everyone would agree prices are deflating and come to tidy arrangements where you just get the next house for cheaper but it doesn’t work like that.

People hold out for too long. Don’t want to blink first. Only the truly motivated sellers take the hit. Buyers know they can get a deal if they find a motivated seller.

So. You have to hope the sellers of the house you like are motivated and will take a deal to get everything moving. Then months of uncertainty where everyone worries about mortgage valuations and people pulling out.

Good luck with it all. It’s so stressful. Don’t get too invested emotionally in any house. Do you know the circumstances of the people selling the one you like?

It always amazes me that people house hunt before they have had an offer on their own property! Who knows how long it will take to sell.

My house has been on the market for 3.5 years now, it started at £550k, as recommended by 4 different estate agents, and is now on at £475. It is quite niche in that it's a 4 bedroom Georgian house with a 2 bedroom coach house converted to a holiday let (could be used for other things obviously) and we happen to live in the area in the country with the 3rd slowest housing market. It is a nightmare!

Any house is only worth what someone will pay for it and when a house first goes on the market you often get 'sightseers' rather than serious buyers. Our last viewing was on Monday, a couple who work in Cornwall and Holland, they decided that our house, in Lincolnshire, was too far away from Cornwall!!!

Honestly, wait until you have an offer before you look, then you know you are in a position to proceed.

But they still sold being advertised at that price, so people viewed them at that price and made offers, that’s all we want. We are open to offers £40k below our asking price we just can’t go lower as then we can’t move.

Perhaps by your own admission you need to wait for 30 viewers rather than 5!

I guess it depends on how much you need / want to move. Moving will 100% make our commute and daily logistics harder, so we will only move for our dream home. We have been looking for 9 months and seen 1 house we like. So if we had gone on the market 9 months ago when we first started thinking about it we’d probably have lost any buyer by now. We also didn’t want to string people along when we were not fully committed to a move. Particularly as the no 1 reason people will probably buy our house is for schools.

Yes, he has been offered a job in the US and needs to let them know by October if he is going to take it and would like to sell first. They are definitely motivated, they’ve reduced the house twice already since July.

You have both confirmed what I think really - despite the estate agent assuring me he can still get £830k with this tactic! That sounds like cloud cuckoo land to me.

OP, For the £785k offer, can you go back and offer them £810k?

How can you possibly say without seeing the house, comparing it to the local market etc.

Round here people seem to be selling at asking price and above within a couple of weeks.

Also think, that recently they changed it to until you had a offer in place you couldn't make an offer. So interesting in your case this has been "allowed" as for the last whole it hasn't been.

I hope that this works out OP you sound realistic and I'm sorry EA are absolutely vile right now and lacking in integrity because the market is really shocking and they won't acknowledge it, just business as usual. Makes me cross for you!

We have done so but they can’t afford it.

For what it's worth, I think you may be looking at this from the wrong angle. Houses have a 'value' that is dictated by the market at the time, and the actual numbers only really matter when it is your first house, or your final house - everywhere in between is affected by the same market conditions when you swap from one home to another.
When we moved, we dropped our price by £15K (negotiating after an offer was made, not by reduction in asking price!) - but spent £10K less than the asking price on our new house..... so pretty much evened out.

I really think that the issue here is the 'affordability' of your desired new home.

If your finances are so tight that you need to extend the mortgage term to get it, then you are really stretching yourself very thin. Especially when the numbers are "only" £20K apart.

I know it isn't what you want to hear, but maybe your current circumstances dictate that you simply can't afford the house that you love (at this point in your life).

I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at. This would be our “last” or forever home. I realise the market might dictate that we can’t get the amount we want to move but I’m trying to work out what would give us the best chance.

The mortgage is easily affordable for us as it’s based only on my income, but my husband actually earns more. We both own six figures and would have 60% equity in what we are buying so the mortgage will be £2k a month, which is very affordable for us.

It’s that the mortgage lender would only increase the amount they would lend me over that longer term.

If we added my husband to the mortgage we could borrow a lot more, but we want to maintain our lifestyle and have a built in buffer in case of a change in our circumstances so choose not to borrow anywhere like what we could if we pushed our finances.

We would accept £40k below asking price. We could do this sticking with the 25year mortgage but would then have to raid our children’s private school fund for the stamp duty, which we’d rather not do so would increase the term to 30 years instead.

It hasn't even been a week yet. You had 5 viewings which indicates that the asking price didn't exactly put people off. Wait and see if you get any more viewings in the next week or so. Wait and see if you get any offers. If nothing then reduce asking price to £800k.

It's all about the Rightmove search criteria; there is a cut-off at £800k and £900k, so if you did reduce to £800k, you might attract more potential buyers. Our agent's advice was to list at the lower end to attract viewings and generate lots of interest, then competing bids would drive up the price (and that's what happened).

You can sort search results by price (highest/lowest) as well as by newest/oldest listed. So anyone sorting by price would not see a property at £850k at the top of the results. Having said that, I had email alerts set up so I'd be looking at those rather than scrolling through search results.

I find your approach a bit strange, personally.
You're both on 6-figure salaries (!) but you don't want to pay more than £2k/month towards a mortgage.
What on earth are you spending all the money on - saving it for private school, sounds like, and what's "lifestyle" - expensive holidays?
Each to their own, of course, but I'd prioritise getting your "dream" house even if it means stretching yourself a bit more financially. Or just spending slightly less on other things.

My husband runs is own business, so while he takes home six figures, it's not guaranteed, so we have always been cautious to make sure my salary covers the necessities in life so we could stomach him having a bad year - feels like a sensible option in today's climate.

Our real estate agent in London told us that the first two weeks you advertise a place you will know how much people are willing to pay for it. No need to wait longer at that price cause it might take months to sell. It was true we put it up the price they advised us and we have 3 offers £25k above asking price within a week.

Interesting thanks for the insight

My husband was a contractor for years and he always had income protection insurance and a savings buffer.
I still don't really understand your financial approach tbh and I would prioritise a house over other things but that's just me!
Good luck selling yours.