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Original poster

What is your opinion of the market?

90 replies

alliwant · 19/07/2011 12:58

Is it going up or down in your area? Is much moving? Move buyers or sellers out there? What percentage below asking price is average? DOes anyone actually get the asking price?? Don't want to turn down an offer that might be the best we'll get at the moment! TIA

OP posts:

ElbowFan · 19/07/2011 14:03

Why not ask your Estate Agent?

Ealingkate · 19/07/2011 14:05

We just had to pay over asking, and there are lots of buyers with cash - in Cotswolds.

Original poster

alliwant · 19/07/2011 14:17

We have asked our Estate agent, and the agents in the area we are moving to. I do wonder if they paint the real picture and how it differs in different areas? I am also wondering how rapidly the 'slump' is happening too. Just curious.

OP posts:

nikos · 19/07/2011 14:30

We are in the north east and everything above about £200000 is stagnant. We had an honest chat with our agent yesterday. There just hasn't been much activity at all since Easter and quite a lot of vendors on at 200k plus are just taking their houses off the Market. This isn't about price, there is just literally nobody moving. We are going to stay on til sept/oct as are desperate to move but if nothing happens will come off too

SybilBeddows · 19/07/2011 14:40

where I am in Yorkshire there are lots of overpriced houses sitting on the market for a year or longer. From time to time something comes on at a sensible price and it is snapped up within a few months.
At the top end of the market vendors are still coming on with ridiculous asking prices, and not getting them. There are a LOT of reductions.
Just from watching of Home.co.uk over the last year or so I would have been under the impression that initial asking prices were going up despite the very thin sales, so I was surprised by the July Rightmove HPI that they are firmly going down. It's not happening fast in nominal terms (the annual change for Yorkshire is -3.7%) but once you add in inflation it's quite striking.

OP I trust you know about HousePriceCrash?

There are local forums on there. It is obviously a very one-sided site but it's useful for finding out about a range of sources of information like the Rightmove HPI.

Have you checked market trends on Rightmove for your area too? here
The sold info for the last month or so isn't accurate because it takes time for sales to get onto the Land Registry but the graph for number of marketed properties is worth looking at - you can see them piling up in most areas.

bibbitybobbityhat · 19/07/2011 14:41

Absolutely no sign of a slump here, property is selling fast at 2007 prices, if not a little more (se London).

Original poster

alliwant · 19/07/2011 14:42

Thanks nikos

The area we want to move to seems very slow and the area we are in is slowing down "sluggish" the agent calls it. You have highlighted just what I am scared of, turning down an offer only to then find it was the best we were going to get, because as the slump gets worse no-one moves. We have to move due to relocation.

OP posts:

Pinkjenny · 19/07/2011 14:43

This is how I feel about it:

Original poster

alliwant · 19/07/2011 14:46

sybilbeddows Thats the second time I need to thank you in one day for your advice Thats really useful, I will check those links. I am not very up to speed with trends, we got a good offer 2 months ago and sat on our laurels waiting to exchange. Now it has fallen through , I am just about to have a baby and panicing. Had an offer today of 25K below asking price.

OP posts:

Original poster

alliwant · 19/07/2011 14:49

pinkjenny I have been following your thread, I feel your pain, in a similar situation, being messed about by bloody idiots! Either they want it or not - why is that difficult???

(pass your pillow this way when you've done )

OP posts:

Pinkjenny · 19/07/2011 14:49

alliwant - isn't it awful?

SybilBeddows · 19/07/2011 14:54

I really feel for anyone who is having to move at the moment.
We are really lucky because we can bide our time; we've got 5 years before we absolutely have to move when dd gets to secondary age.

notquitenormal · 19/07/2011 15:04

Have you got propertybee? It's a little progamme that tells you how long a house has been on rightmove/zoopla etc. and what changes it has gone through (reductions, descriptiopn changes etc.) We found it quite interesting.

Where we are, W.Mids, asking prices are dropping and anything that isn't keeping up isn't selling.

We had valuations of between 90-100k on our house when we put it on the market end of Feb. We went low and sold at 87k on the first day. Identical house round the corner went on at 99k and has just been reduced to 85k.

We bought a house in a set 4 streets where people were asking between 165k-200k. All the 180k+ ones are still on the market.

nikos · 19/07/2011 17:12

But where we are there are just no buyers in the family house range. Doesn't matter if you drop the price. There are just no buyers around.

SkelleyBones · 19/07/2011 17:16

My MIL had her flat sold in January at £61,500, just had it reassessed, the EA now says £45,000 and some are selling at £30,000
She's not happy was her fault the sale fell through.

halfbabyhalfbiscuit · 19/07/2011 17:45

My experience has been completely different to the majority.

We're in a city in the SW and the properties that we are interested in are in such short supply, that demand is just pushing prices up and up

We want a 3 or 4 bed semi or detached in a good school catchment area in a pleasant suburb of the city. We have a very decent budget (more than enough to buy what we want in theory) but places just aren't coming up for sale. So far, we've been gazumped on one, lost out on sealed bids in another and didn't even get to view the third place as it sold for substantially more than the asking price in 2 days!

Places that we like are now going for about 10-15% more than they were in 2007, if not more.

castlesintheair · 19/07/2011 18:00

It depends where you live. In my area prices are going up and anything at the bottom end of the 3/4 bed house market (we are talking just under 1 million) goes within days and usually for more than the asking price. It is totally depressing.

Thromdimbulator · 19/07/2011 18:31

Market town in the south east which has a high opinion of itself is very pleasant. Prices are still way up on the supposed peak in 2007. However, transaction levels in the 12 months to April this year are just over half (53 percent) of those in 2006. Spring hasn't bounced, things seem worse this year than last. Lots and lots of unsold houses on Rightmove, those that do go SSTC often reappear some months later. Estate agents doing nothing to manage the situation and wonder how they are staying in business.

However, rents are high and good rental property is still in short supply leaving many people between a rock and a hard place.

SybilBeddows · 19/07/2011 18:36

bloody hell Castles. Madness. You could have a mansion with land for that round here.

Mumswang · 19/07/2011 19:16

Here there are lots of overpriced houses sitting on the market. Anything realistically priced sells very quickly

We offered on our new house 2 days after it went on sale. Completed 8 weeks later. Our seller was moving overseas so eager to sell. It was on at a good price for the area and she accepted 7% below asking price. We would've gone higher

We've been watching the market for years. Know the area very well. And with tools like property bee and houseprices.com feel we're pretty savvy. I think lots of ftb are similar. We've bided our time for years, watching and leArning and are pretty accurate when it comes to what a house is worth

Generally this area is pretty bouyant. Demand will always outstrip supply as it's a small, desirable country town with excellent schools. Even so if it's overpriced it's not selling

I'd say prices are deffo down but not tumbling

Original poster

alliwant · 19/07/2011 19:18

halfbabyhalfbiscuit Where are you? We are in Exeter, i've got a lovely family home on the market.....

OP posts:

mylovelymonster · 19/07/2011 19:40

There are many potential buyers out there looking for a family size house with money to spend but holding off because the prices being asked for not very much is just fecking ridiculous, so the myth that there aren't buyers out there is rubbish. We're just not all blithering idiots.

FWIW, asking prices in Herts seem to be starting to move in the right direction. Reductions aplenty, but then starting points usually in the stratosphere.

The market is constipated, the housing stock in this country is an embarrassment, and current pricing levels ludicrous. The Emperor is indeed naked.
Flame away.

Mandy21 · 19/07/2011 19:46

Definitely depends on area - we're in Cheshire but the highest priced area outside of the SE according to the Times and it really depends what rung of the ladder you're looking at. The bottom end - your typical family house - sells within days for asking price as people want to move to the area for schools / amenities etc. I think beyond that, properties are still moving but they don't quite generate the furore that "cheaper" properties do.

bluetoad · 19/07/2011 20:25

We have been trying to sell our house for 6 months or so without any joy. We have had a few viewings and no offers. Our EA says that as we are at the top end of the market, there are fewer buyers and we just need to hold out for a buyer to come along! We have priced our house very competitively and even if we got the asking price we will have made a loss on our house of around 5k. We are being realistic and not even expecting to get the asking price.

We are relocating with work so have to move, however the area we are moving to does not seem to be experiencing a dip in the housing market. The properties we have been interested in go quickly and go for the asking price. Property that stays on the Market does seem to be ridiculously priced.

In my experience the agents - particularly in the area we are looking to buy - do not give you accurate advice about the state of the Market.

By the way we are moving from the north west to Berkshire.

nikos · 19/07/2011 20:28

Why are you so sure there are buyers around for family houses? We started off at £250k and now reduced £240k. Even if we dropped another £20 k and sold at a loss, there are still NO buyers registered with our agents looking in that price bracket.

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