To lower the price or sit it out???

[CuddyMum]

I am wondering whether we should lower the price on our house now, wait or just to take it off the market. Estate agent said they are quiet due to summer holidays, Olympics etc. I don't want to give the house away (so to speak) and find that the houses I'm interested in won't budge on their price. What to do???

Zoopla isn't accurate. Update your house and neighbours that you have seen using the edit function.

zoopla is not accurate at all. Surveyors never refer to it. I have worked with several surveyors over the years one is a friend he told me last week not to buy as I had found somewhere I liked as he said they are down valuing all over the place.400k may look attractive after xmas.

I think you need to be realistic about dropping your price. Just because you bought it for 396k four yrs ago and have spent money etc does not make it worth what you want it to be worth.

I bought mine for £165k in 05 (realise yes, different league but still, up north). Was valued at £200k in 06, but wasn't looking to move. Market has now crashed, and we need to move (baby on way). Just had estate agents round and they're saying £120k max. Bear in mind that I put down £50k cash deposit on this place! In reality, no way would you stand to lose as much as I will! Unfortunately, that's just life. I could sit here and cry about how much I've spent on this place (improvements etc) and the fact that it's now only worth £45k less than I paid for it - so pretty much ALL of my equity is wiped out.

But i'm being realistic. Both myself and partner on low paid jobs. Don't like to presume, but if you're living in a £400+ house, clearly you're not doing badly financially!

If you want to move, you need to be realistic. That's all I'm saying. It's worth whatever a buyer will give you for it - not what you think it should be worth!

Interesting. I wonder if there's quite a lot of people saying (quite sensibly as far as they're concerned) "Well we don't absolutely have to move now, the market's flat and we can't sell for what we want, let's stay put", and that what we'll see in a couple of years is a glut of properties as lots of people who've put it off reach the point where they DO have to move - for schools, more space, less space, whatever.

Out of interest Noddy could you give me an opinion on my situation (sorry for hijack). I respect your insightful posts on this topic.
Bought a grade 2 listed stone cottage in September 1999 for £178k. Spent 90k extending it. Currently have 80k mortgage on it with 8 years to go. Am wary of moving due to a)market going down and b) don't want to increase mortgage term. Could do with more space. Should I a) throw some money at an extension or is it just like pouring it down the loo or b) put up with the lack of space and count my lucky stars I am not in negative equity.

Family growth, job relocations, death, divorce, debt will be houses that will have houses priced realistically, the rest will sit on the market along with care home vendors using the fact they can't sell as an excuse to stay in their own homes, to avoid paying care home fees themselves.

I wouldn't be surprised. The 'sit it out' decision is based on the premise that house prices will go back up to ~2007 levels. I'm sure they will at some point, but if they continue falling for 3-5 years before gradually rising to 2007 levels in another ~10 years (made up numbers of years of course) then people will probably change their minds.

I really do think that unless you bought before the boom or you really have no choice it's best to sit tight at the minute.

Who would buy your house? How would they get together a minimum of 45k for a 10% deposit? I'm right at the bottom so I can see that if we were to move up, we would need to find a deposit from elsewhere as there is no equity in our house to use as a deposit.

I did see a vast number of agents and they were selling houses but for specific reasons such as someone wanting to live near their mil (imagine!) or wanting disabled access etc. so don't despair if there is something particular about your house then someone will want it, but it might take a while for them to find you.

You could ring your mortgage company and see what they value it at, at the moment to get a more realistic view of what someone could borrow on it. For us, it was much lower than what the agents were quoting.

Sonnet I think extending to stay put is wise especially if once the extension is done you will have the house you want/need. There are a lot of sellers who are taking their houses off to wait for the recovery but statistics are showing that that won't be for many years. It is in the govts interest now to allow the market to crash and re build. This wasn't growth we have just experienced it was a debt fed bubble. I think there will be a lot of properties coming on from summer 2013 onwards once people realise they can't stay put waiting for an increase.he speaks sense

And this is the problem with the market- I paid 396, I won't accept a penny less than 4xx

You paid 396 yes, but it wasn't worth 396, it was hideously over-priced, and now the bubble is starting to burst.

This is why houses aren't selling, vendors refuse to believee their house is not worth the overinflated price they paid for it.

What you paid for your property is totally irrelevant in today's market. Your house is worth what some one else is willing to pay. If you wait for the market to rise then you will be buying at the highers market rate too.

Thanks Noddy - that is what my gut instinct says. Ideally I am looking to stay put for another 15 years and then move to another part of the country to retire

I think prices are are sliding op. if you really want to go you need to take a drop, disappointing as it is. But prices will likely be lower next year. I cant see us affording to move for a very long time as we are in negative equity. If you want to move and can afford it, I'd do it now.

What you buy will be cheaper now also.

IMF said UK won't recover until 2020's, a lot of people have their heads in the sand.

i think with 400+K house you would need more than 10% deposit, there is absolutely no point in dropping price by 10-15k, because if i was willing to payabout 425k for house i would have offered 425 already as its a good offer on 449k house,

I think if house on market for more than 8 weeks with no viewings its definitely overpriced whereever it is; 10% reduction may create interest

if you paid 396 4 years ago I think that is about what it is worth now, only because of improvements without improvements would be more like 350-360 as prices have dropped at least 10% in bucks more elsewhere so 396 -10% is is 356 spent 35 k evenif you get it all back =£390k, I think you would sell at 400k

Sorry that's probably not what you want to hear, however you might have to wait 5 or more years for prices to go up,

If you are going to reduce it to sell it needs to be something eye catching to potential purchasers - like 10%. We had ours on since Feb with very few viewings and only 1 offer, dropped it a month ago by 10% and had 5 viewings in 3 days and 3 offers. Depressingly we've sold for 20% less than we paid in 2006 but we have to move and thankfully had a decent amount of equity in our home. We have managed to claw some of our loss back in our next house as we've purchased it for substantially under the home report valuation. We just keep focussing on that rather than what we're lost.

We really had to move for dh's work or we'd probably have stayed put. Things don't look good for house prices though so maybe as well reducing price now as it'll probably reduce even more next year.

Best of luck

New branch manager had suggested new photos yesterday and these were taken this morning by their professional photographer. He is visiting all of his clients to look at the properties for himself. He has suggested relaunching my house with a new brochure and a £10k reduction. Whoever buys my property will be getting a lovely and well maintained home. If I'm brave enough I'll post a link to the new brochure when it's ready.

Best of luck.

Photos can make a real difference. I was struck by this with a house we viewed a few months ago. It looked lovely in the agent's photos and was lovely 'in the flesh'. The vendor took on a second agent a few weeks later and their photos were appalling in comparison, making it look smaller and darker than reality,

We were in a similar situation to you CuddyMum (bought at peak, plus extended), but we sold within four weeks by pricing realistically.

The way you have to view it is thus. You bought for £396 in 2008. House prices are now ~10% lower so, if you hadn't touched your house, it would now be worth £360. You have spent £35K on a loft extension. Therefore your house is now worth £395K. Sell for £400 and you'll get a 5K 'profit'. As such, you're not 'losing out' or 'selling for less than it's worth'. You are recouping the cost of the loft extension, and selling at today's market value.

Our figures are almost identical to yours. We bought in 2007 for £389K. Did renovations/extensions and purchased extra land which totalled £135K. Sold (this month) for £500K. Sums are exactly the same as I am proposing for you - if we hadn't touched the house it would be worth ~£360. Therefore we recouped the £135K spent on the house (and made a 5K profit in consideration for all our hard work).

We're moving into rented and will then be gearing-up on our mortgage, so I'm hoping we'll claw back all of the nominal 'loss' when purchasing our next house, especially if prices continue to fall.

Have now dropped the price to £435k and we'll see what happens.

One house on our very short shortlist has just reduced their price by £15k (divorce) and the other house we like (same agent as us) should be reducing shortly as they are emigrating in two weeks. Hope this is a good sign!

I live in the North West and have had a property on the market with one agent for five months at £142,000. This was not the highest value but the middle one; the lowest being £129,000 from an agent I trusted. I was one of three executors of an estate and the other two went with the £142,000 agent.

I pressed for a change and asked the others to look at Rightmove's Land Registry sold prices which are a true reflection of what is selling and for what locally. I expected to get around £125,000. It sold in three days, and completed today only two weeks later.

The house went to a cash buyer who was cherry picking the best properties in various price ranges to let out at around £600 per month.

I do sympathise however because it is different when it is your own home. However, this is the cold, dispassionate reality at the present time. You sound like you have a lovely home, but I don't think a £10,000 reduction is going to make any difference in this price bracket. Sorry.

NB
Land Registry data is not accurate either as it excludes all sales to or from companies and all sales or transfers at 'other than market value'
including repossession sales
which in the current market means in some areas the public land registry data overstates the market by a significant amount

I looked at specific properties nearby very similar in size/location to what we were selling ie those on sale at £150,000. These achieved £125,000 and £130,000.

Agree that 10k isn,t enough in a falling market as you would get offers 10k below anyway if there was a buyer.