Will the market pick up in September?

[levantine]

We need to find something to buy and there is nothing that we want

Please tell me more will come onto the market soon

I feel your pain, we are in exactly the same position as you! We have sold our flat and are almost at exchange point, but there is absolutely nothing for sale for us. The agents I have spoken to reckon it will pick up in September for the Christmas push, tbh I can't see how...but we live in hope.....

If I'd decided to put my house on the market towards the end of the summer term/during the school holidays, I might very easily have decided to wait till the children went back to school. Much harder to keep the house all tidy in the holidays!

Wait there will be lots of price drops. I have had four calls this week offering me big reductions as I usually do houses up This time we are looking for a house of our own not a project so it is more difficult but the agents all say the ,market is falling and if you have already sold you probably got the best price you could as things are heading down. Having said that we can,t find anywhere that really grabs us although have a few in mind but it has been difficult. Lots of people can,t afford to move the fees are horrendous!!!

i am hoping that the market will pick up. 2011 has been another poor year for transactions with more properties left unsold and an increasing number offered chain-free where the owners have already moved on. So, am hoping that asking prices will become a little more realistic as sellers decide they do want to move on with their lives and that the market of the last 10 years has changed dramatically - bit like changing direction of the world's largest supertanker.

I would love love love to buy our next home.

Small anecdote - house near us, sale fallen through, so what happens? Asking price goes up £50k (10%) as it comes back to the market - wonders of PropertyBee.
This is the sort of madness I'm hoping will stop. It re-inforces my impression that 'values' are simply plucked out of the air.

We have sold our house (well stc) and are really having difficulties finding houses we'd even entertain viewing let alone buying.
We're probably going to have to rent for a year and see what happens. Don't really want to lose our buyers so have no choice.

I would not sell my house until I have found another one. We did this and bitterly regretted it as we couldn't find anything decent. we have now bought somewhere but in hindsight, if we had researched the market propoerly we would have stayed where we were. We ended up just buying out of desperation. Expensive mistake.

Does the market usually pick up in the autumn? I was under the impression it generally tails off in the autumn then only picks up again in the spring.

I am generally optimistic that prices will fall further in real terms but not optimistic that there will be much more on the market. If prices are falling or stagnant people aren't going to want to sell unless they have to.

Looking at Rightmove market trends (here the number of properties on the market is creeping up very slowly but that's because properties aren't selling rather than because much is coming on.

(enter your postcode then click on the 'marketed properties' tab)

Couple of houses just come on near us in last few days and some price reductions too (ours is a popular village but houses still not selling). A lot of doom and gloom about where prices are heading next year so hard to say whether people will hold off or try and sell now before things do drop for certain

Thanks Sybil that's really useful. Where we are trying to buy prices are still rising and I think people are holding out until they go up even further

Our area is doing the same thing as yours Levantine it is so frustrating. Agents are getting asking price offers for houses from several people then playing them off against one another in bidding wars. It is driving me crazy, we have been looking for 6 months and lost out on several places. It is so emotionally draining too. Grrrrr.

The market usually picks up once the kids go back to school, then drops off again getting on for Christmas. Good luck to all those trying to buy/sell. We just sale agreed on my house & a house to buy. Am hoping to exchange contracts by the end of October & complete November. :)

I think people thought the financial situation in the UK/world would blow over quickly so they've been holding off putting their houses on the market and still expecting to get what their place was "worth" in 2008.

I think NOW that people are slowly realising that we are in this mess - as are lots of other countries in the world - and that it's a long term thing. There really is only one way for prices to go, and that's down. The cuts haven't even started yet!

Got a viewing this morning. Hopefully the start of some more.

Good luck Nikos!

It's funny posting on MN property threads sometimes as there are buyers and sellers, so some people want prices to go/stay up and some want them to come down, but fundamentally now we all need the same thing, which is for the market to flipping well move so there is something out there to buy, as well as someone to do the buying. The stand-off is doing no-one any good.

I am putting my house on the market in February when my contract with the letting agent finishes. I am going to try and ensure the agent markets it at close to what I would get offered for it at the time in the hope that it will sell within six months. Although I am incredibly nervous that it will take longer than that. Not because of the costs involved with keeping it running in that time, but because we know we could never live there again (2 bed and we now need a 3 bed minimum) and we need to move sooner rather than later when we return to UK.

On the flip side of that I have seen many houses on RM that are lovely (we live overseas thankfully, which stops me from viewings at the moment) that if they are still on the market when we return we will go and view. If the house sells quickly then we will not have a chain so makes us a more attractive proposition iyswim.

Sorry to hijack, I am already feeling nervous about this. Just wish I could put the house on now!

Absolutely Sybil. Even estate agents are waking up to the fact that high prices do nothing for them when there's zero transactions.

As for sellers wanting high prices....that depends. If you're a downsizer who owns outright/has loads of equity at the moment, high prices are beneficial to you (but not to the rest of society). If you just want a bigger house, high prices are a bad thing in general - the problem I guess is people having their equity wiped out so they can't use it as a deposit on the next place.

A sensible(ish) solution would be for banks to allow porting of negative equity to a new house (providing of course the mortgagee can make the repayments on the new place) to get things moving. That way the market can start moving - and prices can continue downwards.

My parents are a sensible sort for the older generation, and they'd rather see a significant reduction in prices so that the younger generations can get a house at a reasonable price than worry about the illusory wealth stored in their house which they'll never release to spend on tat.

I think prices will fall slowly from now on.

However, prices will fall quicker when mortgage and especially remortgage applications are vetted by HMRC, as it t will no longer be possible to claim an income that doesn't exist.

Those remortgaging who originally over stated their incomes may well be in for a shock forcing them to sell - either trough a retrospective tax demand from HMRC or non availability of a mortgage offer.

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowing/mortgages/8732253/HMRC-to-verify-mortgage-applications.html

One day I'll learn to spell!