Is anyone else having a misreable time trying to sell their house?

[Roseflower]

Our house has been on the market since June and trying to sell it - it's so depressing. Our one offer fell through and since then it just been no more offers.

Buyers (this month we have only had FTB) seem to be getting more and more unrealistic in what they expect for their money around here.

I hate everything about selling a house- the horrible estate agents, the constant calls from rival estate agents touting, the time waster people, rushing around like mad tidying up after dd for hours, giving up our plans to get ready for viewings, people saying nasty things about our family home... but worse in the uncertainity of it all.

Be good to know other people feel as down as me for some support. Or even better people who did feel like me but now things have turned out well!

Good for you Notnearly. Hope you are enjoying your new house .

Anyone else having success in selling? I'm losing the will to live, TBH. We have had a handful of viewings, including a couple of second viewings, but no offers. Dropped the price quite a bit, but we have a large house and my estate agents say there are very few people looking in this price bracket at the moment. Feeling very glum this morning .

mousey, I disagree. Agents are massively overvaluing houses here just to get the business.

I viewed a house a few weeks ago by a man who owned the estate agency who said that it hadn't had any offers on it yet because the asking price was too high .

When I asked him what valuation he had given them he remained silent!

Our flat has been on market for nearly a month. We have had 5 viewings all with good feedback (2 saying they want to do 2nd viewings which havent materialised...)

The last 3 viewings the EA have arranged havent happened, am sick of cleaning up and vacating with my newborn and 3 yr old for hours for, in the end, no good reason. aaaaargggghhh!!!!!

We have found a house we would like to offer on but dont feel in a strong position until we are under offer ourselves. We dropped the price by 5% this week.

Its all gone very quiet.....

Can I come in?

So fed up with it all. :( House been on the market since March. 5 viewings, all positive, and offers? Not one.

I am due back to work in November and wanted to have moved closer to my Mum (child care) and closer to my work. Now facing the prospect of at least an hour and a half commute each way and having to find child care.

OH wants to give up, take house off the market and try again in a few years. I have been offered a job here, with hours to fit round his work. However we will never see each other and I really had my heart set on country living away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

Feeling very sorry for myself!

OMG I've just read the BBC news and houses have dropped in value -3.6% in ONE BLOODY MONTH. It's the biggest drop since records began. My sister was going to put her house on the market after christmas. I've just phoned her up and it'll be on the market (hopefully) within the next week. Hold strong ladies but think carefully before you reject an offer on your house just now.

Just had estate agent on phone, again. He thinks we should drop another 10k. :( Don't know what to do. Fecking, fecking stupid house and fecking fecking stupid OH for buying it in the first place.

Muppet, I feel your pain. Really, its not your OH's fault - we are all suffering. My DH and I are going to sit down and talk about what we should do tonight.

Our house has been on the market since mid-August. We have had just three potential buyers view the house, two lots came back for second viewings, but no offers. Our house is fairly large for the area, and our estate agents say no-one is really looking in this price range. We have dropped the price by over 6% and would be happy to drop more if the larger houses we are interested in would drop by a similar percentage. The ones we are interested are either empty (having been rented out) or are being sold by downsizers, but no-one seems to be interested in reducing the price by a realistic amount. If the ones at the top aren't reducing, we are all pretty much stuck. We aren't going to lower our sights and buy a house we don't really want. I can't see the point of paying an extra £200k plus moving costs for a house that is only marginally better than the one we have got. The thing is, if we take our house off the market and others have a similar mindset to ours, then there will be a shortage of houses which will....guess what.....push house prices up. So all of those sitting around waiting for house prices to plummet might be in for a shock!

I can see where you are coming from. There are five houses similar to ours up for sale in our area. We are all of similar prices but ours has a fourth bedroom, drive and downstairs toilet which none of the others have, so if we can't sell ours I don't think anyone in our area is going to. Everyone keeps saying it only takes one person, which is sod all comfort.

So what are you thinking you are going to do? Our house is sitting 15k under home report value at the minute. I really don't see the point of reducing it further. Especially as no one is offering anywhere near the asking price of any house (according to estate agent) so surely if anyone was interested in the first place they would just offer lower anyway?

You are in a different position to us in that you want a better house, we would quite happily take something smaller, its all about location for us. I would live in a cardboard box if it was close to my Mum and my work :(

I don't think people are making offers. Someone came to see our house who accepted an offer on their house over three months ago. They had been unhappy at what they had been looking at and had decided to look at more expensive houses. Seemed to like our house but didn't take it further. I would have expected at least one wild offer from one of the couples who viewed!! I think the risk that particular couple run is that the person who made an offer on their house might decide it is now too high and reduce it or withdraw it altogether.

TBH, I think people are waiting to see what happens in the spending review. If it will hit them hard, they may decide to stay in rented, stay where they are or make very low offers. And of course we are now in the run up to Christmas. I think the market will die a death pretty soon .

We are going to chat about it tonight - perhaps drop a little more, perhaps change estate agents, perhaps take it off the market.....

There is a state of attrition at the moment in the housing market all the 15 houses we've seen over the last 6 months abet 3 of them (all of which sold withing weeks) have had asking prices above 2007 peak prices and sellers have not reduce them despite being on the market for months, they are all holding out for the mythical buyer who is going to love their house warts and all and offer near enough the asking price. Buyers are thinking there is no way I'm paying near enough 2007 house prices with the economic situation the way it is and are prepared to hold out until the promised price falls happens. I'm buying and selling at the same time so we've price our house within the range an identical house sold for at the beginning of this year (£30K below the 2007 peak) and have offered at least 9% below asking prices on a property we shall see what happens!

OH bought our house in 2007. We are screwed! :(

Estate agent valuations are high to attract business. They don't expect to sell at this price. They expect to knock you down over time as you get desperate. Hence why short contracts (max 6 weeks) are useful.

Also, why not go with the EA who offers the realistic valuation? Will sell much quicker, possibly for a higher price as further house price falls are not factored in.

I don't go anywhere near properties that are marketed by chancer EAs.

Better still, it's YOUR decision - so research the local market like mad. Previous house prices, competing houses. I use firefox and propertybee to check on a house's price & description history.

Amazing how many 'sold' houses have the asking prices increased after they are set to Sold stc. If you compare your house to one which has sold, you might not realise that the asking price and hence sold price was LOWER.

Houses achieving 91% of price (can't remember source). So £400k house, goes for around £360k.

Unsure if it will be repeated, but Halifax's 3.6% fall in a month must have affected sentiment.

New here, so, hi. I'm looking to buy a home but prices are way, way too high compared with average salaries. So, I'm just sitting in the wings for now.

I can't see salaries rising with the economic gloom and government cutbacks etc.

Also, bank rates may be low but there is a mortgage famine out there, so, what buyers can borrow (loan value vs house value) is plummeting. This is because lenders know house prices will collapse and they want ensure there is some equity in the house after the collapse.

Halifax had house prices down 3.6% in September.

If you sellers are serious about selling, then you have NO CHOICE other than cut your asking prices significantly.

In a falling market, sellers have to cut their prices faster than the monthly (halifax/nationwide) falls, otherwise, their asking prices are effectively rising - and buyers will stay away.

Lots of unsold houses near me. The ones that reduce their prices have something quite badly wrong - for example, they have coverted the garage but the original garage door is still there, or they are badly overlooked or have hardly any garden.

Good houses still selling, but takes longer than usual. Have a very good friend who's been a local estate agent for 15 years (branch manager) - says the problem is building a chain. 6 months to sell a house not unusual - but they are still selling provided the house is nice.

Houses with no offers still getting lots of traffic on rightmove (they can see the statistics for any house that's on the market if they work in an EA). People waiting for a fall but buyers deciding to stay put instead. Some families going into rented and home to get a bargain but (anecdotally from EA) when they make cheeky offers on nice houses, they are rejected.

Cheeky offers on mediocre houses being accepted. Higher end (nicer)stuff holding firm.

What you need is some gold sprayed twigs in a vase. Works every time apparently.

'Higher end (nicer)stuff holding firm'

do you mean the asking prices or the footings?

'I can't see salaries rising with the economic gloom and government cutbacks etc.'
I can.

it's people like you talking the economy down.shut up.

Muppet - not necessarily! If your house is coming down in price, what you want to buy will be coming down in price. Okay - provided you are not downsizing.

I don't disagree with you that houses are being overvalued, Dry. But if you are trying to sell in an environment where you know buyers will try to knock you down by 10% or even more, you are not going to start off with the price that you are willing to sell for. This might have been a reasonable strategy in the past, but it just doesn't seem to be good negotiating tactics any more. (I have no idea who the chancer EAs are. Wondering how you know who they are?). I also agree that knowledge is power. I have been doing a fair bit of research muself - but it only takes you so far to know what vendors paid for the property and what other houses on the street have been selling for. Take my own house, for instance. We purchased it over a decade ago, but its not the same house as it was then as we have added a substantial 2 storey extension. So buyers will be getting a 5 bed, rather than a 3 bed house, with greatly extended downstairs accommodation. Also, we have a detached house in a road where most properties are either detached bungalows or semis. Even the detached houses are very different to one another.

Most sellers are also buyers and many of those will be trading up. They won't be dropping their prices if the houses they want to buy don't drop too. And if Martha is right (and I bet she is) that the good houses are holding firm, only those that really have to sell will drop their prices and buy a house they don't really want. People like me will retreat until things get back on an even keel. A drop in prices is okay for upsizers. So the result might not be a bonanza for all those hoping to get a bargain - it might just be stalemate.

Reminds me of being in a multi storey carpark once, just before Christmas. The queue of cars trying to get in at the bottom was so great, that those trying to get out couldn't move. The cars winded all the way up to the top of the car park and down again - we were all stuck. In the end, it took someone to get out and talk to other drivers to get some movement going.

And finally, I'm puzzled about all those families staying in rented accommodation. I have just had a look at Rightmove. A house of a similar size to ours in our area costs about £2.5k pcm to rent. How on earth can it make financial sense to stay in rented for prolonged periods in the hope that house prices will fall? I have no doubt they will fall, but I am old enough to have been here before (early 1990s) and, as sure as eggs is eggs, they will rise again (at least in the SE) and when they rise, oh boy do they rise quickly!

Sorry if I sound a bit stroppy - they do say moving house is one of the most stressful things to do (or in our case to try to do).

'it's people like you talking the economy down.shut up.'

What rot. Just look at the facts freely available:

Spending Review 50,000 Companies at Risk

uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/spending-review-puts-50-000-companies-at-risk-warns-begbies-traynor-tele-f74379fbb216.html?x=0

192 Quangos Scrapped

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/14/government-to-reveal-which-quangos-will-be-scrapped

Lloyds Bank to cut 4500 Jobs

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11531564

HP shedding 6000 jobs.

Just to pick out a few recent news articles.

If all this helps "talk" house prices to a place where they are affordable, then GOOD.

'it's people like you talking the economy down.shut up.'

What rot. Just look at the facts freely available:

Spending Review 50,000 Companies at Risk

uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/spending-review-puts-50-000-companies-at-risk-warns-begbies-traynor-tele-f74379fbb216.html?x=0

192 Quangos Scrapped

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/14/government-to-reveal-which-quangos-will-be-scrapped

Lloyds Bank to cut 4500 Jobs

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11531564

HP shedding 6000 jobs.

Just to pick out a few recent news articles.

If all this helps "talk" house prices to a place where they are affordable, then GOOD.

'it's people like you talking the economy down.shut up.'

What rot. Just look at the facts freely available:

Spending Review 50,000 Companies at Risk

uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/spending-review-puts-50-000-companies-at-risk-warns-begbies-traynor-tele-f74379fbb216.html?x=0

192 Quangos Scrapped

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/14/government-to-reveal-which-quangos-will-be-scrapped

Lloyds Bank to cut 4500 Jobs

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11531564

HP shedding 6000 jobs.

Just to pick out a few recent news articles.

If all this helps "talk" house prices to a place where they are affordable, then GOOD.

Just also want to add that when I bought my first house in the SE in 1989 prices were, of course, much lower, but the interest rate was 15% - yes 15%. I considered myself very fortunate to get a fixed rate of 12.5%, until the rate fell sharply and I was stuck with the fixed rate for several years.

We saw a house with an asking price of £780K we know an identical house sold on the same road in 2007 for £760K the EA said the current vendors were looking to achieve the same price as in 2007 and have as a result factored this into the asking price its a nice house. There is no way I'm paying 2007 prices in this economic climate. True most of the vendors of big family houses are retirees looking to downsize and don't really have to move but how long do they want to hold out for before they can live the retirement dream it might take years for actual selling prices to hit 2007 levels again. Also the majority of the buyers of these houses will be in their 30's and 40's and starting to realise financially whats going to hit them re: employment, university fees etc so again I'm not going to pay over the odds for a house if I'm going to be in serious debt for the rest of my life

How many of us mums fell for a joint income mortgage? It's even worse if it's only for shared equity.

The financial sector have conned us because both of those things have pushed up house prices and now we need two incomes to pay the mortgage. This is why they get such large bonuses - it is from our second incomes that pay larger mortgages with more interest.

People should get real and drop their prices and stop being greedy.

I have no sympathy with ANYONE struggling to sell their bricks.