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Original poster

Anyone else waiting for a buyer and feeling fed up?

56 replies

CuddyMum · 31/07/2012 12:50

Have been on the market a few months. Had a steady trickle of viewers. No negative comments - feedback usually is they have a house to sell, aren't on the market etc. Latest viewer had 5 children and needed more space (which he won't get with a 450k budget in this town). Anyway, I just feel really fed up today and wonder if we will ever sell. On the plus side the two houses we could downsize to are also still on the market.

OP posts:
noddyholder · 08/08/2012 17:12

I think your spectacular taste would have added £££££££££££ as the banks would have lent it! But now it has all changed. Our rental is for sale and it was put on for 259. The woman who came to do the EPC said it was really worth about 195 ish and so the owners have decided to keep letting it and wait for things to 'pick up' next year!

YellowWellies · 08/08/2012 17:16

Oh dear a Eurozone sh*tstorm and return to recession should really help things to 'pick up next year'. Wishful thinking, ducking your head in the sand, and the largest financial decisions of your life are not good bedfellows but they seem to be for so many people.

noddyholder · 08/08/2012 17:31

I know they are fools! They have financial difficulties too. I tried to tell them to reduce it and cut their losses but they said the agent said it always recovers and maybe keep us as tenants for 6 more months and then re consider AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!

Gemgem123 · 08/08/2012 19:36

Maybe you don't have enough twigs in vases presented around your house, that always entices buyers!

tricot39 · 08/08/2012 19:57

This thread is scaring the life out of me! We are looking to move next year which is good timing in terms of trying to upsize, but rotten on the job security font! I am starting to wonder whether it is wise to move away from a longstanding job to a new one and risk being "last in - first out" if redundancy came along.

Aso we are considering a move to scotland where the "offers over" system/culture is strong. Apparently I need to think about adding 10% even in this current climate! Unlike the others who will be passing reductions up the chain, it really feels like we really will have a battle on our hands to avoid buying up someone else's debt!

Going from "offers over" to "offers under" is going to be a massive culture change that is not going to happen overnight. Bu**er.

FlatCapAndAWhippet · 08/08/2012 21:07

I marketed my lovely, stylishly refurbished Grin, 3 bed semi with big pretty garden on a "nice road" in Jan 2011, 2 weeks later I accepted the middle offer from one of three, they were procedable.

I was determined to move house before dd started school this September. EA advised a market value of £249,950. I thought it was on the high side, put it on at £235,000. Got £230,000 for it. We moved to our new home in May 2011. We got £25,000 off the asking price.

IMO you have to get your house looking and priced better than the others crush the competition.

Bite the bullet.

YellowWellies · 08/08/2012 21:13

Tricot I live in Scotland - offers over is well and truly dead. All of my right move searches are coming up with houses being marketed at UNDER the home report valuation for a quick sale. Don't let an agent or a greedy seller con you into offering over, it's dead as a dead dead thing. Cheeky offers are all the rage even in Edinburgh.

YellowWellies · 08/08/2012 21:15

Great words of wisdom there flatcap I entirely agree. There's no point being the nicest, highest priced house in the EA's window - if you are going to stay on the market forever out of reach of buyers. If folks wanted peak prices for their house they should have sold at peak - paper gains are only worth something if you liquidate them - now they are evaporating. Yey to lower living costs!

Viperidae · 08/08/2012 21:17

My DB has put his house on the market at what seems to be a very reasonable price but has not had even 1 viewer. EA says it is getting lots of hits on Rightmove but the market is just dead.

K999 · 08/08/2012 21:18

Agree re offers over - so not the case anymore. We've just bought a house at £60k under the home report valuation - and yes I did submit a cheeky offer!

Badvoc · 08/08/2012 21:22

Last year our 3 bed extended semi was in the market for £149,950.
I felt this was too much, even though it was a very large, well appointed house.
We found a house we really wanted, back on the market after a sale fell through.
I rang the EA and told the EA to market it at offers over £130k.
We sold to a no chain cash buyer in 3 days.
If it is the right price it will sell.
Check out the competition on the property websites...that how I got my figure.
Be realistic...you may love it but you are biased!

Badvoc · 08/08/2012 21:23

We got £131k for it btw....

Badvoc · 08/08/2012 21:24

...and we got £13k off the asking price for this house....

tricot39 · 08/08/2012 21:51

oooh K999 - music to my ears.... although i am guessing your place is not in my search area in edinburgh which is allegedly holding up well with offers going in at 10% over - whether that is asking price or valuation price I am still to discover.

K999 · 08/08/2012 21:55

Yes, it does depend on the area. Some parts of Edinburgh are doing ok but still nowhere near the prices they once used to go for. Which part are you looking at?

Spirael · 09/08/2012 09:59

I do agree that some of the time, the price is the problem and there are people out there who are completely delusional about the value of their property. But that's not always the case!

It's great for those of you in places where the market is still fairly bouyant. But I'm in Yorkshire where the houses are cheap (my 3 bed semi in a nice suburb is low enough to not require any stamp duty payment!) and the market is dead as a dodo.

The few buyers that can obtain a mortgage and/or sell their property have got loads of properties to choose from and don't care about 10% discounts here or there - as it only equates to about £10k in this area. They are able to pick their favourite house based on exactly what they want in terms of layout, aspect, etc. Since they're not buying to invest - they're buying a home to live in.

Imagine identical houses aside from the dividing wall downstairs were on the market. One has a bigger lounge and the other a bigger kitchen. One of them has the price of £100k and the other £110k.

Would you go for the cheaper one, or the one you preferred?
What about if one was £400k and the other £440k?

YellowWellies · 09/08/2012 10:02

Good point Spirael and also a reminder to those living in more expensive areas - who are maybe knocking £5 or £10k off the value of their house and thinking that they are making a big reduction (cue the line 'not giving it away'), think about any price cuts in a percentage term - £5k off a £400k house is barely 1% - when houses are selling at 10% down - no one is going to care about a 1% reduction.

As for Edinburgh a friend has just moved from the meadows to Duddingston (two of what I would say are the nicest areas of the city) and had to accept a reduction on their asking price - but also managed to negotiate one on the house they were buying.

tawse57 · 09/08/2012 12:54

I see this a lot in Swansea YellowWellies - people with 300K or 400K or much, much higher taking 5K or 10K off their asking price but it works out something like 1% or 2%.

I look on globrix daily and they show the percentage drops as well as the cash reductions - when I see, as I often do, 1% drops in asking prices I do not even consider the house as I know the seller is still completely delusional and in denial about the market.

I expect to see a price drop of 10% as a minimum. People with houses on for 300K need to be dropping by 30K to get buyers. 400K houses by 40K and not by 5K.

I think we will see a big house price crash in the UK in the next year as alot of sellers are now struggling to pay the mortgage but are still in denial about what a bank actually thinks their house is worth.

HomeSearcher · 09/08/2012 12:54

From many of your comments it's clear that the lack of mortgage funding is undoubtedly casting a shadow over the UK housing market, with prices down 1.5% year-on-year and low transaction levels. However, a number of my clients have discovered the flip side to this... once you have sold there are some genuine bargains to be had out there. It?s just a case of finding them.

CountThalim · 09/08/2012 13:31

There is also another aspect to house prices that has been missed so far. The opportunity cost of renting. Everyone needs a roof over their heads after all and you've only got two options.
If the cost to rent a house is higher than the mortgage cost to buy it then buying is preferable. (from an accounting point of view)

Zoopla suggests that at present the cost of renting is higher than the mortgage cost of buying. (Note. This is based on current low mortgage rates)

I'm not saying that house prices aren't going to fall any further, but the 60% quoted above from Dean Baker would appear to be a case of hyperbole, picked up by the Independent as it makes an impressive sounding story.

CT

alabamawurley · 09/08/2012 17:12

Strictly speaking CountThalim you should also take into account lost interest on house deposit, buying costs, maintenance, future rate rises and of course depreciation. The LTV of the mortgage will also have a large bearing on any buying/renting comparison.

YellowWellies · 09/08/2012 17:19

I think a fall of 20% is pretty accepted though (given that prices bubbled 300% in less than a decade due to loose lending criteria whereas wages only rose 10%), I just don't have that type of money to lose. I'd rather waste £5k on a year in rented than £30k + (and a repayment of £90k to pay a mortgage on that sum) by buying just before a big crash. It's horses for courses I guess - as buying at the bottom of the market is always tricky as mortgage products are rare after banks get their fingers burnt.

noddyholder · 09/08/2012 17:21

Yellow I think its a coming! Speaking to several agents and they are all lying through their teeth! I was called about a flat today originally 365k now would take 250 if cash! Hang on until at least November

tawse57 · 10/08/2012 09:09

I think the Autumn will bring panic for many house sellers once the summer house selling season is gone.

Cretaceous · 10/08/2012 12:20

Well, I've given up on waiting for house prices to fall where we are, so we're extending, not moving. Sad

I thought our neighbour's house was well overpriced. Yet she's had two offers. The first fell through, because the mortgage co thought it was overvalued (it was!), and she refused to drop the price (she's divorcing, and doesn't actually want to sell). Then she got another offer from a buyer with a large deposit at 95% of the asking price. Now she's delaying all she can, yet they are still keen! At that price, I'd sell them ours!

We are just outside London, and so many people have sold up there to move out when they have children. They are now cash buyers, but there aren't that many houses on the market. Yet my mum wants to sell, she lives in the North, and there're no buyers at all.

It's not helped because those of us with cash are getting such low interest rates.