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!

I've had it up to here with downsizers demanding 2007 prices they can keep their big houses until they can't manage it then it will go to rack and ruin and get a fraction of what its is worth now. My hope is to buy of someone who really needs to sell and price it realistically I've really had enough of looking round houses where the vendor holds out for months/years to get the asking price thinking there house with the bodged DIY jobs is something special

In some ways I can understand the vendor wanting to increase the price of her house.

We've been on the market for a few months and what we're seeing here is that buyers are expecting to offer a sum hugely under the asking price as they 'know' that all properties are overpriced.

We did a lot of research before pricing ours and it's on pretty low. It needs work, but this is reflected in the price. To take the hit some buyers have been talking about would mean we're effectively paying for them to complete the works needed, which we simply can't do.

We've wondered if we put the price up, would people be looking at paying something that would come closer to something we could accept?

While I agree that prices do need to come down, and we would be fully prepared to take an offer under, we just can't afford to go that much under.

And people don't seem to be researching similar properties at all. If you look at properties here that effectively have the work completed that we still need to do, they are much, much more expensive.

We've had some decent viewings, with a couple of interested parties, but these people hadn't even put their houses on the market when then viewed, so who knows what will happen.

While there are certainly many vendors with unrealistic ideas, there are plenty of buyers with the same!

Pah. I hate selling.

Yoho Ahoy have you priced your house by the following equation?

House price with work done - cost of work that needs doing = your preferred house price

because I have looked at many houses like that and it pisses me off! If it's that simple why doesn't the vendor get the work done in their time and let them deal with the stress and then sell it at the top price with the work done. Vendors who have a property that needs work doing need to reflect in their lower price not just the estimated cost to get the work done but the fact that the buyer has to deal with the stress of finding builders and having their house uninhabitable for a period of time.

You may well have allowed for that in your price so I apologise for my rant if that is the case.

I agree with all of your conclusions about the downsizers. Our house is on the market at £365k, the choice of upsize houses for us are all sitting around the 600k mark, which is a huge jump. There are three huge houses on the market currently owned by elderly couples and they are marketed at over 500k despite needing absolutely everything overhauling.

Somebody needs to tell these elderly downsizers that we have different requirements in a family house these days - that 1995 kitchen isn't "tasteful", we need more than three bedrooms for that price. I could go on and on.

I appreciate the house is their "nest egg" but they could never have dreamt of increases in value of (for example) 2000% and it's certainly not money they have actually earned and saved up.

I'm afraid, as others have said, some of these people will never be able to sell their houses for what they perceive them to be worth. They should cut the price and give those below them a fighting chance of dropping their own asking price - for the good of everyone and especially for the good of FTBs.

There are currently 3 houses for sale in our street. All the houses in the street are almost identical in basic layout. Some have had rooms added above the garages and a couple have had rooms added in the attic. None of the houses on sale have either of these additions, so they are all 3 bed semis. the only difference between them is that one has a conservatory (a really ugly one) and the most grotesque cladding you have ever seen; the other two don't. All three of them need a new kitchen and bathroom, and redecoration throughout.

Two are on the market with one particular estate agent (who always value high, and so are very popular with sellers) at £330k (with conservatory and ugly cladding) and £290k (I think that one has been reduced). The other is on with another agent at £220k. They've all been on the market for months. The one at £220k is probably fairly priced, but there aren't many buyers around and this area of the country is likely to be hit hard by public sector cuts/job losses. I don't know what kind of fantasy land the people asking £330k are living in.

Incidentally, I think they're all elderly (judging by the decoration in the estate agent brochures), which is why they're sitting it out hoping that someone's going to come along who thinks it's 2006.

"They should cut the price and give those below them a fighting chance of dropping their own asking price"

Why should they? Why should my parents spend their future years worried shitless that they can't afford to pay for care for themselves becacuse their 'nest egg' has gone?

We sold our house because we put it on at a realstic price. Below the estate agent's valuation, and accepted an offer. Because we really needed to move. Why is the onus on those who don't need to do so to make a sacrifice?

I don't think the arguments need to be about anyone making a sacrifice. It's purely about what people will pay.
Some downsizers will be in a position to sit it out - this might work for some of them, for others it will backfire. Everyone does what's best for them - no-one has an obligation to think about the needs of anyone elsewhere in the chain except insofar as understanding what's going on elsewhere can give you some clues as to what's likely to be a realistic price.

Well exactly. I don't think there is a moral obligation when it comes the housing market

There possibly should be some moral obligation placed on estate agents to value houses appropriately. It really isn't fair to tell people they can get 40% over anything they're likely to get.

People trying to sell can do what they like.

yes, presumably they have a code of professional ethics that says they have to give realistic valuations but in a recession they are tempted to stretch it and stretch it.

You know, I'm just wondering if some of the elderly people who hold fast to ridiculously high valuations are actually just putting too much trust in agents' valuations.

Perhaps you're right. Perhaps they should sit in the big family houses hoping they can sell them for what the estate agent says they're worth.

The problem is, people can't pay those prices. My generation is stretched to the limit paying for huge mortgages, childcare, petrol and the like.

I can think of three friends (all in their late thirties) working two jobs and bringing up children in houses that are too small for their family's needs. They can't afford that family house.

It's all very well worrying about a nest egg but presumably it needs to be released at some point and let's face it, prices aren't on the up in most areas so the nest egg is decreasing in value the longer they leave it.

What hope our generation? Or the current generation of twenty-somethings? In my opinion, the future for us looks very bleak when we're elderly. The sixty-somethings of today had many advantages over the succesive generations and continue to enjoy benefits that will never be available when we're that age. I'm sorry their nest eggs aren't performing as they'd like but we've all got a future to plan for, haven't we?

Ok. So old people have a moral obligation to sell do they? Because life is hard for younger ones. There are plenty of younger people refusing to accept the reality of falling prices - it's not just the old.

And a 'nest egg' (not a phrase I used btw) becomes more than just a luxury when it is all the money you are every going to have as you can't go out to work.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for any home owner to choose the time they sell that best suits them without being hectored by irate would-be buyers

This article by an estate agent tells you everything you need to know

agentsdiary.blogspot.com/2010/10/surveying-wreckage-friday.html

Pernickety - no, not work on house - done all that, it's outbuildings. House is fab :)

Sorry that should be

agentsdiary.blogspot.com/2010/10/surveying-wreckage-friday.html

Very much worth a read if you don't understand why estate agents behave the they they do

remove the space before "wreckage" in the link

tinyurl.com/335rvum
That's better :)

well that blog looks great apart from the casual misogyny TeddieP! I read a couple of entries and was cringing too much to read any more....

Misanthropist I would say. He hates everyone including himself. The point is he became like that through years of pandering to the fantasies of the greedy and deluded.

That bloke sounds horrible but his entries are interesting, where is he based?

how sad Teddie! he does write well though.

He's anonymous - we don't really know who he is. But he writes very well about the soul destroying effects of the property market on ordinary people, including himself.

That article summed up for me the awful delusions that many sellers now have to have - often because they bought their house for too much in the first place thanks to those same estate agents and egged on by the media and the banks. Many will have neglected their pensions or over-spent on consumer rubbish out of a misplaced faith in the value of their homes. It won't end well I fear.

Some of the comments on this thread are incredible. I rent a flat with my husband and our baby and we made a conscious decision NOT to buy about 6 years ago now, because even then it was obvious that the market was spiralling out of control. There is need for a MAJOR price readjustment and also an attitude readjustment. We are waiting for that readjustment because we are simply not prepared to mortgage ourselves to the hilt just to gain the oh so wonderful title of homeowners.

Firstly- your home's value is determined by what someone is willing to pay for it- NOT what you or your EA think it is worth. If it not selling, the price is too high.

Secondly- I cannot believe the number of owners who can't sell at the price they think they should and so decide to rent it out "until next spring"!?! Have you told your tenants this? Renters are not there simply to pay your overpriced house's mortgage!

And thirdly- because you paid x for your house does not mean you will get x back (or x+ profit as some seem to believe).

Well we went to see financial advisor yesterday. Have taken the house price down to just covering the mortgage and fees. Its now 25k less than home report. Not an expensive house, so nearly 25% reduction. Fingers crossed. Have got no idea what the next step is if this doesn't work. :(