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!

The only people that I know well who still feel that house prices are going up both work for estate agents.

Now it might be that their specialist experience makes them a more reliable source of information but on the other hand they have everything to gain by talking prices and confidence up.

My experience is that prices in the east and west midlands are still dropping and while this is happening cash buyers like me will sit on our hands. There are 4 houses on my "make an offer" list - all have been on sale more than 6 months and 3 out of 4 have dropped the asking price at least twice.

So if you were looking for a house, would you be any less interested, as in not even go for a viewing if the price was say 10% over what you were hoping to pay? I don't think so, I wouldn't. So what is the point of us droping our asking price?

The house we had our heart set on completed yesterday. It was offers over (Scottish System) 220k and sold for 165k. :(

Sugarmuppet - I'm sure there are potential buyers who use a scatter-gun approach of putting in low offers on a wide variety of houses and just hope that eventually one sticks. However, I think there are many more like me who ARE hugely put-off by over-inflated asking prices. If I put an offer on a house it is because I really want to live there. It therefore requires a great deal of thought - e.g. can I imagine living there for five years? Ten years? This time and emotional energy is a total waste if the seller is likely to reject the offer anyway. It is a buyers market, and as a serious buyer at the moment with no chain and mortgage in place I have immediately dismissed everything where I think the owner is not serious about selling. That doesn't mean I'm looking for desperate sellers, just realistic ones.

Don't suppose you are looking for a LOVELY four bedroomed house in Glasgow are you???

I can see what you are saying, and appreciate where you are coming from. I am just so frustrated with the whole thing. If we ever do sell and buy somewhere else I will make sure it is our 'forever' house and never do this again!

So, on average what % under the Home Report Valuation should houses be marketed for?

We have put an offer in on a house this morning. Not our forever house but great location and sick of renting.

We offered just about 10% under. We are cash buyers, no chain.

They bought it a year ago, extended it and, by my calculation their asking price would give them about a 20% profit.

They have rejected our offer so we will be extending our lease for another 6 months.

Remains to be seen if it will still be on the Market.

I would have bitten your hand off if you offered me 10% under....

.....your not in looking in Glasgow are you.....

yes, I think I'd love your house! However, DH would have a bit of a commute and I really don't want to change the DC's school again. We're in the S.E. England in an area where sales volumes froze for about a year or so (end 07, most of 08) before just continuing skywards (what financial crisis?) and are only now finally starting to unravel a little. I don't think this is a great time for us to buy, but we really do need somewhere to live and renting is just not working for us anymore. Afraid I know nothing about the Glasgow market. I really do sympathise with those trying to sell. If only Estate Agents would actually step up to the challenge and try to manage the process of helping owners trade-up or trade-down which may mean re-negotiating all prices in the chain proportionately and approriately. Oi, Agents, stop stroking your shiny suits and do some hard work for a change.

Sadly not in Glasgow.

The estate agent sounded a bit depressed. Chains seem to be breaking down all over the place at the moment so I think he thought he might get away with a low stress sale.

Oh but Glasgow has some super schools, and what are we talking 6/7 hours commute? No bother!

Think we should start a 'stop stroking your shiny suits' campaign. Love it. The next time I see him in his shiny suit I will smile thinking of your comment instead of wanting to grab him and shake him as I usually do!!

BambinoBambino - Do you know if they they just bought it in the hope of doing it up and turning a profit? Brave(?) move in this climate - or have their circumstances just changed and they need to sell? Did you include stamp duty in your calculations for their 'profit'? (Not sure any of this is useful, just always curious about what goes on in the seller's mind).

Oh no. Wouldn't want to stand in the way of a good ol' grab and shake. You deserve it and I'd applaud if I saw it.

Well the agent says they are relocating because of work but who knows. To be honest the house looks like it was done up to live in it rather than sell.

BB: ... who knows indeed. I hope you're not too disappointed. I'd consider your offer a little seed and make sure they have your details in case that 'better offer' fails to materialise (which is entirely likely don't you think?). Really depends on whether they do actually need to move or if its just an opportunistic thing. One of the houses we were interested in just withdrew from the market and I suspect it was because her 'plan' to move to a more expensive area was just not feasible unless she struck lucky and someone paid over-market for her house. (but then I do spend too much time trying to second-guess sellers!).

Yesterday I viewed 3 houses in the same village (England, Wales border). They were all at very similar prices (within 5%) but what you got for your money varied so much.

At one extreme there was 6 bedrooms and 4 reception rooms (whole house was 3000 sq feet) with about 1.2 acres.

At the other 4 bedrooms and 2 reception rooms (whole house 1700 sq feet) with about 0.25 acres. This vendor was downsizing and was really quite aggresive: to the point of saying "I don't want any silly offers" within 10 minutes of our arrival.

Bambino, I can't believe anyone would seriously expect to make 20% profit in such a short space of time in this market! Of course, your first offer is likely to be refused, so I'm hoping you didn't go in with your best offer straight away. Give them a few days to stew on it and then up it a little - if you can afford to do so. Or don't - and they might come crawling back anyway.

Anyone looking for a 4/5 bed house on the London Surrey borders ?

I have just asked our estate agent whether it would be of any use for him to speak to the estate agents for the house we would like to buy. It has been on the market for a month longer than ours but hasn't budged a single pound.

Dejavu - I suspect that downsizers are part of the problem. They have missed the boat for selling and making a real mint (as opposed to a reasonable mint), but they don't want to accept it - well, not yet anyway. The house we are interested in is owned by downsizers.

I guess we shouldn't really blame them - people are living much longer and cash in the bank brings in very little interest. How are people going to survive? My MIL has just gone into a care home and you really, really don't want to know how much that cost a week........

bambinobambino i feel your pain, we put in an offer, (and our final offer was) about 8% under their asking price and had it refused! We have a good deposit and would get a mortgage and are hopefully, fingers crossed in the process of tying up our sale .... so on paper we are fairly decent buyers!
i had thought someone would be pleased with the offer, i know they have been on for 6 months as well .......

There have been houses on the market here for well over a year - I know because I had my eye on them while we were still thinking about moving. And the prices are dropping but very very slowly. I can only assume they are in fact downsizers who aren't really in any great hurry to move. Which is hard for families trying to upsize as those are the houses they want.

We sold quickly because we put it on the market at a realistic price (we could afford to because it had more than doubled in value in 13yrs) and accepted a slightly lower than expected offer. Our neighbours were all a bit dubious and at the price but when we sold, all of a sudden other house in the street dropped their prices and sold too.

When we first started looking at houses to buy we crossed out all houses that had been on the market more than 6 months...how nieve were we! Presumed there must be something terribly wrong with them!

Thats our house been on 7 months now. At what point do you throw in the towel and give up? :(

Really Sugarmuppet? I think mostly if they've been on the market for ages they're more likely to just be overpriced.
If they have been on for ages at a stupidly low price I might be suspicious though! Home.co.uk is a useful site as you can see the price history, ie not just if they've been reduced, but if so, when.

Prices seem to be dropping round here - or at least, there are fewer coming the market at prices that make us go 'Oh ffs, they'll never get that!' and more that make us go 'Hmmm, that's only just above our price range!'
There are quite a few that have been on the market for over a year and have been reduced a few times but each time by so little that it hardly makes a difference.

Competitively-priced houses seem to sell quickly though. Our neighbours shifted theirs in a couple of weeks.

We are currently looking to buy (renting at the moment) and I have noticed a lot of houses that have been on the market for months but prices have not dropped. Have looked at about 20 so far but am not in a rush as I cannot see prices rising, they will stay as they are or maybe fall (we are in East Anglia).

I agree that the sterile look is off-putting. The most over priced house I viewed was empty but sported plastic flowers in vases and pictures/mirrors on the wall.

We've been looking seriously for the past year and have everything in place and chain-free. The agents are hell-bent on showing us houses with 'the wow factor' but that just means someone elses' taste and hoping to recoup what they've spent on the place. No chance. I'd prefer buying something dated but well looked after that we can do up as we want it. It's space we're looking for, otherwise it's just not worth moving at all for us.

Saying that, a house does have to be clean! Clutter unimportant - especially if vendors have young children.

sugarmuppet - what do you think is the reason your place isn't selling? Feedback from viewings? Is it high price? Location? Local schools? Parking? Strong colour scheme? Or just the wrong time? Do you need to move now? If you can wait and risk the market shifting, would it be worth taking it off market & coming back in the New Year? If the market does take a downward shift generally, then it would mean that any shift in the value of your house would be reflected in a shift in your next home??

If you really want to sell soon, try reducing house price by £5k every fortnight until you find a level which attracts a buyer? Different agent? Market it privately?

mylovely - that is just the thing, we honestly have no idea why it is not selling. Or why we are not even getting viewers through the door. 5 in 7 months. Great feedback from each one but then nothing. There are similar properties around us on for about the same price, but we are the only one with a fourth bedroom, the only one with a second bathroom and the only one with off street parking. I would buy my house! If we could take it with us we would! It is neutral in decor top to bottom, in walk in condition. 2 super primary schools within walking distance.

We would like to move closer to Mum, she has just retired and wants to have DD so I can go back to work full time. (Work is much much closer to where Mum lives) Plus, its out in the country side as oppose to city living. My Gran recently died and left her house to my Mum, its too small for us long term but we can move there temp while we look for something else, so our house is advertised as chain free. Another possibility would be to buy my Grans house and convert the attic, but we have to sell ours first. Could sells ours at a ridiculous price and still have enough but what if we drop the price and still don't attract viewers?

Have reduced it 3 times, now on for only 10% more than the mortgage. Do you really think the reducing it by 5k would make any difference?

Sorry for the ramblings, just feeling very about the whole thing.

I really don't know what to suggest! Has your agent stresssed to viewers that you are open to offers? Perhaps people feel the price is too high for them and are too 'polite' to offer less than they think they 'ought' or might be expected by agent or yourself?

Maybe potential buyers are finding it difficult to get a serious buyer for their own place so don't feel their position is very good? Certainly doesn't sound like an FTB house. Sounds like it has a lot going for it!

Has your agent actively rung round to encourage people to view or make an offer if in a good position?
Is tricky time to a) set up a functional chain, b) have enough deposit, c) get a mortgage agreed. Is a bad time to be a buyer or a seller, unfortunately.

Am hoping your buyer is out there.

Thanks for listening to me!! I realise in the grand scheme of things if this is the most of my worries I am lucky, but it is really starting to get to me.

Agent says she has been ringing around, we had an open weekend which was a complete waste of time. The keenest person to view was planning to let her flat and buy a house, but appartenly getting another mortage wasn't as easy as she thought.

Next time I am speaking the estate agent I was planning on saying excactly as you said about being open to offers.

Fingers crossed, but if one more person says 'whats for you won't go by you' I will slap them about the head!