Not sure whether to drop price?

[quietplease]

Our house has been on the market for seven weeks. We have two interested buyers, at least one of whom definitely wants to buy it as "haven't seen anything in this league for this price" and who asked me jokingly "right, that's it, when can you move out?!"

Unfortunately, neither of our interested parties has yet sold. I know which properties they are selling and I'm confident that they are (1) reasonably priced and (2) in desireable areas.

We have our eye on a house which needs complete renovation. I'm not sure it's my dream house but with the right money spent on it, it could be really wonderful (hard to imagine right now, maybe that's why it doesn't tick the box of dream home!).

This house has been on for two months with no offers.

The question is - do I reduce my price to attract more potential buyers or do I hold my nerve and see whether these interested parties manage to sell? I'm pretty confident the second lot would be offering close to asking price as they really wore their hearts on their sleeves. Every penny will count if we find ourselves doing up a wreck!

I'd hold out for a little while - if you have more viewings you may get more offers.

We've had no viewings for three weeks - the EA says this is very common at the moment and that the number of viewings we got initially was really encouraging.

I was thinking that reducing the price would attract more viewers but the flip side of this is that our original "buyers" might sell and then make an offer which is below the offer they would have otherwise made.

Plan b was to reduce the price to "offers over" a figure which we would accept. This would place the property at the top end of the next price bracket down on RM (it's on at 365k so if you're looking at paying a maximum of 350k, our house wouldn't appear in your search).

DH thinks this is pointless because anyone with a top budget of £350k will be looking in the next price bracket up automatically with a view of making a lower offer. He also thinks that if £350k is their absolute max budget, they might make an offer of 340k.

I see his logic - perhaps I'm just being impatient - 7 weeks isn't too long I guess

My Dad was in the same position as you - the people who wanted his house did manage to sell after a couple of months and they are going through the sale now.
Three weeks without viewings isn't that long and it sounds like your house is quite appealing, given the interest you've had already.
I think your DH's logic is sound, but equally there are some numptys out there who might not have considered looking above!
Why not leave it for a couple more weeks and ask your EA for advice - it's what you're paying them for.

Thanks Jaynie

Good to hear of a success story! People who view our house do love it, it has lots of character and it's in mint condition - just can't help thinking if we got more viewers in, they would also fall in love with it.

I ought to hold my nerve - some houses round here have been on for ages (prob a year) and they have started cutting their asking price, but these seem to be the houses nobody likes when they view them. As I don't have this problem, I'm not sure I should be cutting our asking price.

The other people cutting their price are the ones where the sale keeps falling through. One house has sold and fallen through three times and I noticed they cut the price today.

If I was looking at paying a maximum of £350k, I would be looking at houses with asking prices up to at least £400k! I don't think you need to worry about your house not showing up in peoples search.

Thanks Boo.

DH logical, for once!

There are hardly any buyers out there at the moment and even fewer that can obtain the finances and/or sell their own house to proceed. Also people are offering 10% under the asking price at the moment anyway. Not sure cutting your asking price will attract more buyers I just don't think they are out there.

I know - that's the thing.

I guess when we put the house on the market we were expecting things to move quicker - one of our kitchen windows was faulty and wouldn't open and DH actually couldn't be arsed to get it fixed because he didn't think we'd be living there much longer - we were baking! (needless to say, I got it fixed!).

Two options - Everyone reduces price or people just accept it will take longer to sell. Personally I think we should all reduce price by 10% (perhaps even 15%) but there are plenty of older people sitting on large family houses in this area (and people who bought big houses at peak prices) and as neither of these groups seems willing (or able) to reduce their price then we can't afford to reduce ours because we couldn't afford to trade up.

Hold our nerve, I guess.

Your house is still fresh on the market - that is appealing to potential buyers. I reckon there are lots of people who are just too nervous to buy at the moment - there's a lot of job insecurity around too.
You can be lucky though, I sold a house last year too - was on the market for a matter of days before we had an offer, in the end it went to sealed bids and we had 4 people trying to buy it. It had been 'priced to sell' and it did work, but equally, it was a nice little house in a great location - needed some work, but that didn't put anyone off, it was clean and tidy and nicely presented for sale. (I didn't live in it so it was kid-guff free!)

lol at kid guff!

Kid plastic guff bain of my life but do manage to put it ALL in the garage before viewings!

We had our house up for sale when DD was a few months old (I'm feeling an old hand at this at the moment) and the EA piled all the toys and stuff behind him when he took the pictures! It was a nightmare trying to tidy up for viewings - we've 2 teens in the house too.

In your situation I would leave it, in the current climate your house has been on for a short amount of time. If you had no potential offers or interest I would say reduce but in your situation you might appear desperate to the people already interested and not gain any new interest. Are you are in London or SE?

We're probably your potential buyers and I offer at least 5-10% below the asking price in this climate. As we also have a property to sell I'd take a 5-10% below the asking price on my property depending on the state of the buyers chain.
In essence what I'm saying that in this market reduce your house asking price by 5-10% and offer 5-10% below the asking price for your next house.

would love to but I don't think the next house bracket up is willing to reduce.

We live in an area with lots of older people sitting in huge family houses. They don't have to realise a certain amount of money in order to trade up/down. They are rejecting realistic offers.

For as long as they continue to reject realistic offers, we're a bit stuck.

Silly buggers.

We have just bought a house off one of these old couples that had a large house, so it is possible, we got 12.5% off the asking price (which is very large amount discount in the 6 figures). The thing is they had found a bungalow to move into so after rejecting higher offers over the summer they finally came to their senses otherwise they would lose their bungalow! You may have to wait it out.

We are in exactly the same position as you are, Quietplease. We have a good house on a popular road which has been on the market for slightly longer than yours. We have had three lots of viewers - two lots came twice, but no offers. We have already dropped the price by over 5%. We don't know what to do either. We are keen to move, as we would like to move upwards one last time before we downsize, but the downsizers at the top of the pile aren't reducing. The estate agents in the areas we are looking for keep saying it is a popular area, prices are holding up, blah-di-blah, but I have been keeping an eye on Rightmove and hardly anything is selling.

It is madness to borrow more in order to buy something that is no better than we already have, so further reducing the price of ours without those reductions coming from above is pointless. People would make a cheeky offer, if they really wanted it. If we can't buy what we want (and should be able to afford if the world hadn't gone mad), we shall stay put. The drop has to come from the top downwards. There seems to be a bit of a stand off at the moment. Perhaps things will clarify a bit once the spending review is out of the way. Once those downsizers see the writing on the wall, prices might start to come down.

We have tried to communicate with the agents selling the house we want to buy. If the vendors were to accept an offer of about 10% below the asking price (they haven't reduced at all so far), we would reduce ours again in order to attract a buyer. The thing is, they won't accept an offer from someone who doesn't have an offer on their own house. In other words, we have to reduce ours and take a chance they will then reduce theirs. When did the world change so that offers are not taken from those who have yet to sell? It wasn't always like this.

Funny old business, isn't it?!

We have one couple in particular who want to buy ours, as I said at the top of the thread. They haven't actully made an offer yet but if they made one and it was acceptable, we wouldn't take the house off the market, but at least they would know where they stood.

I know which house they are selling. It's resonably priced for the road it's on, but it's not in the same condition as this one, for example, it has part UPVC windows and part old wooden ones. They love ours because it's in mint condition but I suspect people looking at theirs think "oh I've got to replace those windows" and see other things that require money spending.

If they reduced 10k it might sell more quickly. I'd reduce this by 10k from what I expect to achieve if this brought them a buyer, though TBH, I do wonder whether I ought to be taking the hit on my property when I know it's in such mint condition.

Obviously you don't expect to get the asking price but the difference between their asking price and ours is only 50k and ours is much, much bigger and in better condition (extra bedroom, two extra bathrooms, utility, kitchen four times the size plus family room). They have the advantage of being on a slightly better road, that's all. If they take a 10% cut and trade up to ours at 10% below asking, they are still getting an absolute bargain in comparison to what they are leaving. Dropping my price at this stage doesn't seem sensible.

Ahhh now I know the problem - your house is in mint condition. Lots of people like me are shying away from such properties, as if house prices are going to fall much better value to be had by doing up a property. You can't add any value to a house in mint condition.

Do you have to move?

It's a funny one that.

Two EAs told me the only things selling are wrecks that need doing up and houses in mint condition. Not everyone can stomach the thought of doing one up.

Our potential buyers are a case in point. Their house is almost identical to this one before we extended it. They both work full time and can't stand the idea of renovating/extending. In any case, they could never do this sort of work for the £50k difference between the two houses (our renovation/extension was about 85k several years ago).

I personally would buy a house in mint condition if only it existed in this location. I have no interest in making money on it as wouldn't be planning to move again unless we downsize in 20-odd years. I also find the idea of going through the "doing up" bit hard to contemplate with two little children (we were child-free last time), but sadly there's so little on the market that we may have no choice.

Sorry, didn't answer your question!

No, we don't have to move. We are well placed for school and work. If I could build a detached house on the site of my current semi, you'd have to carry me out of here in a box. We simply need a bigger garden and a study!

(for which we'll be paying an extra £120k and getting smaller bedrooms...)