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.

I was in a similar(ish) situation at the start of last year. An identical house to ours came on the market at 140 when ours was on at 158 with a different agent. It was really the same, and only four doors down. We decided we would have to wait for it to sell before we would get any viewings and sell ours. So we waited and it sold and we did start to get viewings... but... ALL of the people who viewed and commented to the EA said they wouldn't be willing to pay more than the 133 that other one sold for. It seems that had been the agreed price, and most buyers are smart enough to check the previously sold prices on the free websites that show such things.

Anyway, we ended up selling for 130k in November as we need to relocate for work and no-one was offering better. My point is, if you think it is bad that an identical house is asking 125, then how much worse would it be if that house becomes a completed sale at say 115 ? It could easily happen. Good luck anyway, I know how stressful this can be.

All the chaos in the housing market is being caused by estate agents not doing enough to advise their clients on appropriate asking prices.

The result is general uncertainty amongst the sellers, many of whom decide to instruct their agents to quote unrealistic asking prices owing to this.

Many others simply decide to sit tight, as buying in such a price chaotic market would be far too risky. The result is what we see now - stagnation in sales activity.

The reasoning for this is fully explained on the Property Match web site with advice on what everyone should now do to resolve the issue and I commend this to Mumsnet.
www.property-match.co.uk
www.property-match.co.uk/blog

well i suppose im lucky in that i dont have to move, i just would have liked to...we wanted to move out of the area but not by very far. I thought this location would be going for us - we bought a tiny house in a nice street rather than pay less for a bigger house in a less nice area,
but if push comes to shove we will just have to sit tight- i might install a new bathroom and try to sort out the garden/garage/drive if we cant move, but ultimately that means throwing more money at a house i dont much like and will sell eventually....
still i guess it would make living in it more pleasant in the meantime.

One of the primary reasons for owning one's own home was, the owner would have control and so could move to another house as and when they decided to.

Unfortunately, this advantage seems to have been taken away by the chaotic pricing variations we are seeing across the market. You might expect agents to be in control of this, as it is their business to sell houses, but you'd be wrong. The result, is uncertainty and less business for everyone - including the agents, rather ironically. If only the prices being quoted bore some resemblance to one another. Then, moving would have still been do-able.

I blame the agents. They should have seen this coming and put some better evaluation methods into practice in order to advise us, the sellers, more appropriately.

It will take some while for things to shake themselves out, as the agents I have discussed this with seem to have no inkling that the problem is of their making!

I would go and have a chat to your neighbours and ask them about their position. They will probably show you round which may enlighten you with regard to the valuation. I'd also get their agent round. Have you googled their address? Do you know anything about their neighbours?

Vicar, A friend of mine had a long-running dispute with her immediate next door neighbors involving official complaints etc. They were desperate to get out. So for two reasons they put their house up for sale at below market price. To get a quick sale and move away themselves, but also because they knew they'd have to declare the probs with neighbours, which would in turn put off potential buyers. .

Something similar might be going on in your road. You might well benefit from the viewers going to see the 125k house. Well worth popping round to interrogate chat up the vendors and get the backstory IMO .

My neighbour's house has been up for sale for nearly a year, with no sniff of an offer at 280, similar house just come on for 270. But realistically they need to set them at under the stamp duty threshold of 250 to have any hope of selling.

fisky - good point but i am sure thats not an issue here - all old biddies on this street and very lovely - its a nice friendly street and everyone knows each other to say hello to - all semis so only attached neighbours to one side - i think they are moving more because the chaps wife died and he has met another lady, maybe just want a fresh start, these are tiny houses when you have kids....

im going to sit tight for now i think.

No, you arent OP.

We spent a fortune on our old house (needed it! and also paid off some debts like you did)

When we moved we ended up with only 20k equity - just enough for stamp duty, EA fees and a 10% deposit. Not ideal but needs must...we did what your neighbours are doing tbh...we put ours on at a very good price and got a cash buyer in 3 days which was what we wanted...if we had waited and gone for a buyer with a chain we may have got £5k more, but maybe not in the current market!!

Are you sure there's doesn't need rewiring or boiler replacing etc etc?

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?

Er why are you resurrecting this old thread littlecharlie with such constructive and helpful advice

Not sure why littlecharlie resurrected the thread, but their comment is sadly spot on by the looks of it.

Hadn't seen the thread before, but it does make horrendous reading. To have paid off so little of the principal of the loan over 20 years - it sounds like an interest only mortgage - and one with no actual repayment plan in place other than the reliance on house price inflation.

Frightening as it's probably repeated up and down the country. It's the media and the financial world's fault as much as any individual. They have got the world addicted to debt. And without question, it's by design to turn everyone into wage slaves. The OP is just one example of this - I hope it works out for them, but by 'eck we've ended up in one massive clusterfuck because of the populous' apathy and blase participation in it all.