To those looking to buy: how many houses meet your search criteria?

[tedglenn]

We're looking to buy a house near a specific village (for school reasons) and are struggling - very little is on the market. When I do our search on RightMove (area, price range and minimum number of bedrooms) I get 10 properties returned. I think we may be in our rental house for a long time!

Just wondering what the equivalent number is for others who are property hunting at the moment?

We are also looking in a certain area and have a specific budget. Rightmove gives us 7:

1 is out as it's directly opposite a pub and bookies;
2 are out because they have no double glazing / parking;
2 we've viewed and discounted on the garden & kitchen / layout respectively;
which leaves 2 - 1 of which is actually above our budget and has only just gone on the market so unlikely to accept our max offer (£11K / 7% below asking)

Thankfully we've got time so can sit it out. Are you looking to move within a specific time?

It is usually about 2 properties in our town and even then we are not getting a perfect match.

There is an awful lot of overpriced junk on the market that is very stale and in school catchment areas it is like hens teeth finding anything half decent that isn't just grossly overpriced and usually only put on the market to catch desperate parents.

We have rented for many years. In fact we find it fairly easy to get exactly what we need when renting.

None. We desperately want to move to somewhere bigger (currently in a 3 bed semi) and there is nothing for sale in this area. There is one smaller 3 bed semi, 2 x 2 bed terraces, and a 1 bed ex-council flat.

There's been nothing on the market for about 18months.

You have to literally wait for old people to die round here before they will sell the house they brought their children up in. Loads of old singles and couples living in 4 - 5 bed houses they cant afford to look after and don't need.

There is no housing shortage in thE UK - just a lot of empty holiday homes, investment properties and old people living houses that are far too big for them. Lost of families I know live in smaller houses with 2 - 3 children than their parents live in on their own or as a couple.

Hundreds! ...on paper... in reality, there's something wrong with almost every one of them

(Mostly the price! Arf)

Hardly any. About 8-10. Price is the main problem. Loads of massively overpriced houses on the market which just sit there for years.

But it is really quiet at the moment too - 6 months or so ago there would have been at least 20 or so we could have looked at, but there's been nothing new for ages.

35, allegedly. Several of them are the same houses with different agents. Many of them have been on for years. Some of them (quite a few, actually) aren't really in the specified area; the EA is just trying it on because they're sort of close to it and the specified area is more desirable than where they actually are. Some of them are not houses, but the EA has listed them as houses anyway. At least one isn't really for sale (sold at auction in August, but still on rightmove).

Of the 35, only 13 actually meet the house/number of bedrooms/price specification. If you want to include gardens or parking, the number shrinks further. Most of them are vastly overpriced too.

Good, so it's just not us then!

Of the 10, we've viewed 4, which have all been rejected due to layout/level of work needed. The other 5 have been rejected due to being on a main road, or being too big (it's nice problem to have I know - we have a healthy budget but actually like small cosy houses and only have 1 DC so don't need zillions of bedrooms). One house we're half-heartedly pursuing (second viewing this weekend) is in a good location, but not the style of house we're really after, plus needs lots of work.

We're in no real rush, we've just moved to the area and DS is starting at the village school this week. But I want to buy so we can get settled properly (currently renting in a not-as-nice area about 4 miles from DS's school). Although I know tactically we should really hold out and wait for further drops in the property market.

We've been looking for about 9 months and very little is coming up - about 6 meet our basic criteria, but there's always something wrong. We have a very small area though as we want to be near a particular tube station. We're not looking for a stereotypical family home as we don't care about a garden or parking, but room size and location is important. We aren't in a rush though and maybe that makes us fussier than we would be.

I think part of the reason for our case (in London) is that landlords are holding on to properties to rent out during the Olympics rather than selling, and owner occupiers who would normally sell are renting out because the rental prices are rising sharply here.

People are renting houses out rather than selling here too. They come onto the market at v high price, sit there for ages and then eventually get rented out instead. Not sure what these sellers plan to do long term!

'There is no housing shortage in thE UK - just a lot of empty holiday homes, investment properties and old people living houses that are far too big for them. Lost of families I know live in smaller houses with 2 - 3 children than their parents live in on their own or as a couple.'

Exactly. I'd even go so far as to say that the grandparents having a bigger house and garden seems to be the norm these days. Which is nice for holidays and Xmas but not so good day-to-day.

The bigger houses in my village all have a single elderly person or retired couple living in them, except for one which was recently sold to a banker couple who have a child but who work in London and are hardly ever here.