why would my neighbours do this?

[ThatVikRinA22]

i want to sell my house in the fairly nearish future....a house identical to ours and just 3 doors up sold in November for £132,000, i think it was on at something like £135,000.

mine was valued at £139,000 with an aim of getting £135,000,

neighbours 2 doors the other direction have just put theirs on the market - for £125,000

not much point in putting mine on now then is there? we would need around the price that ours was valued at in order to move as we dont have all that much equity.

so now im just a bit pissed off. Why would their agent advise them to put it on so low when a property sold for 7k more just a couple of months ago? im not getting it at all and its going to stop me putting mine up for sale.

Maybe they need a really quick sale?

Maybe it needs a lot of work?

Have you nosed round the cheap house? Maybe there is a lot that needs doing to it? Dodgy roof? old boiler? eclectic decoration? body under patio??

Maybe there will be something to differentiate yours? Maybe one of the people that come to view the bargain house will hate it, but see the for sale sign outside your immaculate abode, and put an offer in on yours instead?

Maybe there is an issue with it they reflecting in the asking price? It nreds new Windows or rewiring for eg. Or maybe they are desperate for a quick sale? If yoy trust your agents valuation & it fits local trends, I would carry on as you planned to do.

Go and tell them, maybe they don't know what the other house sold for

doesnt make sense - they had it on a few months ago, then took it off and reglazed all the windows and doors....it was on a few months back for a figure around the valuation that ours got, it doesnt need work at all - pics on the net - seems rather nice inside.

i know its sod all to do with me, but i cant now put mine on the market, its pointless when the house 2 doors up is selling for more than 10k less than my valuation!

the only difference is mine has a bigger garden. im just fed up really....

Maybe they are desperate for a quick sale.

When we sold our house, we needed to sell it fast as we needed to move due to a new job. So we put it on for lower than the valuation of two of the estate agents and possibly it would have sold at a higher value, but it sold within 3 weeks which was good for us.

So they had it on a few months back for the higher price and it didn't sell? And now they're trying again at a slightly lower price? Seems sensible to me. If there were two buyers willing to pay 135 they'd have sold before, wouldn't they?

If they've priced it right, it will sell quickly and you can wait a month and then put yours on. If theirs doesn't sell, well, you were never going to get 135 for yours anyway, and they've saved you the bother of trying.

Perhaps because that is what the house is worth in the current economic climate?

You didn't dare for one minute think that house prices only go 'up' did you??

It makes perfect sense to me that if it didn't sell before, they put it on lower. Going to the trouble of getting the windows done makes them sound quite motivated, too.

Plus it is well known that a lot of agents are over-valuing to get the instructions, so going lower than the agent valuation, or going with an agent who values lower than others in the area, sounds quite prudent.

This is a falling market thing, I think - taking a long time to get a buyer could cost them money so they decide they can't risk going on the market priced too high.

of course i dont just think prices go up - certainly not where i live - you can see from the price! i have owned 2 houses in 20 years. im not a serial house mover....i had enough of that when i rented.

yes they had it on too high to start with, - but now they seem to have gone from one extreme to the other! one sold for 132 in november just doors away....so i dont get why its priced so low at 125, there is nothing wrong with it, they just had the double glazing redone, - its obviously priced to sell, and it probably will at that price, but just means i cant market mine and thats why im a bit fed up about it.
i wanted to move. it aint gonna happen now though.

dear VicarInATutu, there are a number of ways to attract a buyer & achieve a sale in a difficult market. If the asking price on your neighbours house is truly a bit low, they will attract a number of interested parties and may achieve a bit more than they're asking, or they may get a single offer of around or below the asking price, or they may languish on the market. It really is difficult to call. They have tested the market previously and are sensibly going for a different tack to achieve a sale.
just because a similar house sold for 132k in November doesn't mean there will be another buyer out there with the same money available to spend on the same sort of house. An asking price can only be a guide. There may be subtle differences between similar type houses which may also attract a different sort of buyer.
You can only market your own house at what you feel is right and when. Have you seen the details of the neighbours' house? Internal size, layout, square footage - how does that compare to yours?

Are you needing to relocate to a similar house or looking to up-size? To be honest, if you have little equity, I don't see how you can hope to do the latter without adding significant savings to your deposit.
It is a difficult time (am buying myself, and will market my current property in the next few months - I expect to take a hit on what has been previously achieved locally) - and I wish you best of luck and the strength to negotiate hard on your next purchase to counteract any difficulty you may have on achieving best price for yours.

Is it to do with stamp duty? More likely to get a sale at £125 without that extra cos, they may have a dire need to sell and just need whatever they can get.

i know...i know. im just pissed off about it and im probably being unreasonable but their house is the exact same house as mine - same size, same layout. Theirs just has a smaller garden but a brick built garage.
mine has a larger garden and a garage that is falling down and needs replacing (we were going to do that before selling marketing it anyway) mine has built in furniture and less gaudy wallpaper...and there in the differences end.

i just cant market mine at 125. and its pointless marketing it at any more now.
so thats that. im stuck. here.

You have nothing to lose by putting yours on the market for the higher price if that is what you want to do.

We went on the market at the same time as a neighbour. We were across the road from each other and had identical houses. The only difference was the style of decoration and we had a bigger garden.

We insisted on ours being on the market for a higher price due to the garden size, even the agent said to go on at the same price.

We sold ours, for what we wanted. They didn't get any offers. So it is possible.

i would still put it on, people will see it when they go to look at other and may prefer its situ/aspect/ bigger garden etc...its free advertising when they come to view yours and dig at price i would say the West family from gloucester or some such have links with the cheaper one.

We sold a house in January 2011. The house next-door sold one year previously (in a downward market). House next-door had 5 beds, we had 4. On paper, ours was a smaller house.

House next-door went on at £305k and sold for £298k. I always thought they had undersold it. We put ours on at £335k and achieved £325k.

There were subtle differences in the houses. The five bedroomed one had no en-suite and we did.

All in all, ours was just a nicer house. The first viewers questioned the price and used the next-door house selling for £298k to try to bargain us on price because they wanted the house and couldn't afford it. I stuck to my guns and it sold in 9 weeks.

At the end of the day, our road was in a desirable area with good school catchment. I didn't give a fig what the house next-door had sold for, when mine was on the market, there was no other house like it. They could take the price or leave it.

Sometimes one house is just a better buy than the cheaper one. Hopefully the one up the road will sell and there will be nothing else competing with you once you're on the market.

Maybe, people are lot smarter these days when purchasing a house (in fact, anything) with the web at your fingertips you can pretty much research what you should be paying and most go with this and then stick to their guns when negotiating.

You may achieve higher - just depends on your buyer and how good the agent is.

It is now a buyers market - people don't care about what you have paid and how much you want anymore. The golden days of the property market are well and truly over.

Best of luck.

But that depends on the house though. When we were on the market, estate agents were falling over themselves to get us on their books. Two of them told me outright that they would sell it quickly because 'there's nothing else like this in the price range and in this area - it has no competition'.

Given their feedback, I took the chance of selling it with an internet estate agent. It sold to the first couple who viewed it (they came within a week but came back 9 weeks later when they sold theirs). Everyone who viewed it wanted it but some hadn't sold theirs yet. We had another offer at £315 which we turned down because we were confident it would achieve more.

I'm not saying this is true of the majority of houses but making the point that what 'next-door' sold for doesn't always impact to the pound on what yours will sell for.

Buyers may well be savvy (like the guy who researched what the house next-door had sold for - and thought he's stun me with it), but if they want your house and you don't absolutely have to sell it then it's not just a case of 'what the buyer will pay' but 'what the seller will part with it for.'

Just as a double check, did you get the info on the £132k off land registry (as opposed to a possible unreliable source like an EA)?

.....and just curious, how can you have been involved with property ownership for the last 20 years (the biggest property bull market ever) and have so little equity?

I would pay more for a larger garden.

katspaw.

i bought a terrace house in 1993 remortgaged in 2000 to refurb it which it badly needed, it had wood worm, damp, needed double glazing and central heating, made it lovely but it had no parking so sold it in 2006. made approx 50k profit - put down a deposit of 30k on this house and paid 20k debts off (car loan etc)

house we bought was a wreck (this one) for 120k with 30k deposit leaving 90k mortgage but it needed more work than we realised - so had to borrow more against it to complete just the basics like rewiring, new bathroom, kitchen etc, the kitchen was only 6 feet wide so added and extension, by the time we finished our mortgage was 20k more, so ended up with mortgage of 110k for a house which was then worth 155k in 2007 which was the height of the boom (had it valued and neighbours paid 155k for theirs six months after we bought ours) but we never had enough to replace the garage or sort out the garden properly.

mortgage is now about 107k and apparently, if our other neighbours house is anything to go by, ours is worth 125k now. so still pissed off. might sit on this a while longer but feel so trapped! im sure we cannot be the only people with not much equity?

Prices are falling again you may be able to re coup the loss when you buy.