Support thread for house sellers

[Spirael]

Just what it says on the tin, really! I'm sure there must be other stressed house sellers out there? Hopefully we can band together and get some small joy of (hopefully?) seeing our houses sell so we can get a move on!

This is a thread of hand holding and mutual support for the EA dealings, weeks of silence, frantic house tidying, no-show viewings, silly offers and tough decisions. This is not for house bashing and price slating. There are plenty of other threads for that!

I've been trying to sell for a year now. Had a surge of viewings earlier in the summer making the right noises, but all has gone quiet for the last few weeks.

However, we have a viewing booked for later this afternoon from someone who has sold their house and is able to proceed - wanting to move before Christmas. Currently swinging between pessimistic and optimistic, while trying not to look at the house we want to buy!

Anyone else out there? :)

I can tell you that in the most desirable parts of the NW prices are at or above 2007 levels and stick unsold for months/years. If that weren't the case then we wouldn't still be renting!

I've never understood the 'there are no buyers' line trotted out by EAs. If they surveyed everyone in the locality and asked "would you like to buy/own a house" I imagine they'd get an overwhelmingly positive response. If they asked "would you like to buy this 4 bed detached for £1m", the answer may be 'no'. If they asked "would you like to buy this 4 bed detached for £1", the answer may be 'yes'.

Of course it boils down to price - whether that is caused by the buyer's perception of what constitutes reasonable 'value', or by their being unable to get credit to meet that price.

I've been renting for 18 months now and have offered on two places. The first had started off looking for 900k and ended up asking 595k before selling. The second started at 750k and ended up asking 550k before selling. Everything has its price.

YellowWellies - is the RICS survey readable online? Do you have a link to it? Would love to have a look at that.

What hasn't helped our local problem is that a brand new estate was built in the last year and the developers were offering 95% mortgages and all sorts of extras to attract buyers, so it meant that any buyers who were out there flocked there instead. We had one viewing earlier in the year where the family said how much they loved our house, and seemed very keen. They even came back for a second viewing. We thought great, this is the one. They then found out about the development in the next town and that was that. They told the EA that, whilst they loved our house, they could get a better deal on the new house. You just can't compete with that.

Friends of ours are also trying to sell their house - they have dropped their price several times, to the point where they are almost prepared to give it away out of desperation. They can't get anyone through the door - no viewings for months.

The rental market seems to be slowing down round here too. It's a major problem.

RCheshire - we started off at an asking price in line with all the other houses the same size as ours in town, we've dropped and dropped. We had an offer at £75k below the asking price which we accepted. Our buyers had dropped their asking price so far down to make their house acceptable to a first time buyer, who then got nervous and pulled out. The chain collapsed. We would have had to make up a huge shortfall to afford to buy anything else - we were prepared to move to a cheaper area but our seller refused to drop their price. We've done everything we can to be flexible - we've accommodated a low offer, we've dropped our price significantly. Absolutely nothing has made a difference.

It is about prices coming down countrywide to allow a true shift in the first time buyers ability to buy and more than that to pay a mortgage! There are a lot of potential buyers waiting for falls before they proceed

Sorry to hear that duchess.
We were also desperate to move :( and dropped our modest £150k asking price to £130k. We got a no chain cash buyer within 3 days.
I live in Derbyshire (and not the nice part!)
we had put in new windows, new boiler and complete re-dec the year before.
In my more depressive moments I tell myself that's why it sold so quickly....
I think some vendors (like my sis and bil) will have to accept selling and owing money on their property in order to move...
:(

I wouldn't even mind if we got someone through the door who liked it enough to make a cheeky offer. We'd consider it. After all, a buyer's a buyer. As long as we could pass any drop onto our purchase. What really pissed me off was having to take the drop and find the shortfall ourselves - no-one else was prepared to drop or meet us half way.

Yes that is unfair. Can you drop the 75k now to make your house look like a bargain?

Even after dropping our price we on,y got 2 viewings...ine of whom bought it
I know here that seems no rhyme or reason at all...houses £125k and under do ok and issues over £500k sell really quickly but anything in between....:(
Is renting it an option duchess?

Can you match the Offers/prices new made by the new estate builders?
They are offering 95% mortgages here too....

Actually we'd have to put our house price up :o to match the prices of the new houses - it's the mortgage and the extras that we can't compete with.

The cheaper houses in town - FTB types are slowly going according to our EA, and he's also sold some really expensive stuff too, which doesn't seem to be affected. But the ordinary housing stock like ours is stuck.

We're priced now half way between what we were originally and what we were prepared to sell at before, so that if we got a cheeky offer we could accept the drop down again. But if we start off at the lowest price then have to accept a cheeky offer it wouldn't be worth selling - it would be taking it down into the FTB price range, which ours isn't - it's a nice sized 4 bed house with a good size garden and we wouldn't be able to buy anything.

We're left with leaving it on at the current price and watching what comparable prices do and taking our EA's advice, or taking it off the market which we may have to do.

:(
That's how it is here tbh...really expensive and ftb places selling and mid range 3/4 bed not selling.
On my sisters estate three are 3/4 large 4/5 bed houses that have been in the market for 2+ years....
Whereas the 2/3 beds are selling.
I hope to god we never have to move again!....I didn't think I could take it!

There was a report out a week or so ago saying that affordability for 2nd time buyers is the worst for 25 years here. It's no wonder you're having trouble, with the extra problem of a new estate in the same area.

Well no initial feedback yet from our latest viewing... I wonder what the excuse will be this time. Feeling a little negative right now.

Oh how I hated waiting for feedback!
I don't know what was worse...a couple who came to view knowing we didn't have a garage saying they would have bought it except there wasnt a garage :(
Or another couple saying they didn't like the colours we had painted the rooms...rooms good size, good storage, nice flooring etc just didn't like the paint job?
Ffs....

They might not actually have known there was no garage. IME EAs tend to insist on offer to book in other 'suitable' properties whenever you ask to see one. We were sent to all sorts, including one 3 bed when we'd said we were looking for at least a 4 bed. We didn't know until after the owners started showing us around (when we got upstairs we had that sinking feeling). They were lovely, and we felt really bad about wasting their time but it was really the EA wasting both of our time. The house had just gone on the market and the EA clearly wanted to show them they were getting viewings.

Nope. They knew we only had a car port.
They were locals.
They were also arseholes :)

I've been trying to buy a house for nearly two years. I'm a cash buyer in rented accommodation so you'd think it would be an easy task. However, of the houses we have seen which we would like to buy, the vendors have been completely unreasonable as regards the value of their houses and guess what, those houses are still on the market 12 months on. If vendors could accept that their house is worth less than it was in 2007, maybe more houses would sell. I think it is also partly down to estate agents too who over-value houses in order to gain business.

We even had one muppet of a vendor who decided she didn't want us to buy her house and wouldn't give us a second viewing. Well, guess what, her house is still on the market too.

Badvoc - that made me smile :)

Sue - we had the same thing last year....we only got this house because it was being sold by Building company not a private Vendor!
cuddy :)

I wish they were building new houses by us :(

Shit news on the new estate. That's harsh. Good for buyers but not for sellers. Which is why all of these 'newbuy' housing finance schemes the tories are announcing to help the market are no such thing. They are designed to bail out builders alone, but they actually make it harder for your average person to sell their house - as it can't compete with new builds. They are also artificial props to the market and yet more socialism for the rich business types.... capitalism my arse.

Duchess you have my total sympathies you're clearly not one of the many numpties on the market who still believe Kirsty and Phil's nonsense that 'house prices only ever go up' instead you have priced your house to match the market and are more than willing to be accommodating to the change in sentiment. That really sucks :( I would echo the others advice, which is if you're going to cut - cut first and cut sharp - there is no sense chasing the market down.

I really want to get out sharpish as listening to the IMF and other professional bodies (none of which you ever seen reported on UK media!) they reckon UK prices are still 30% too high and will crash over the next few years. We couldn't afford to lose a third of the value of our place hence are getting out sooner even if we have to take a bit of a hit now.

Please find attached a link to the RICS report for August, www.rics.org/site/download_feed.aspx?fileID=12383&fileExtension=PDF the pages of most interest (along with the stock vs sales ratio - which shows it is still a buyers market and that sales are well down on peak) are the last few pages of the pdf which contain the individual feedback from EAs across the UK on their local situations. You have to read between the lines when it comes to the headlines in the actual report though as there is a lot of consultant weasel speak (she says herself a consultant!) 'a broadly level national picture' i.e. translates to 'rises in London are masking dramatic falls across most other regions but we don't want to announce this nationally and scare the horses.... '

RCheshire you're speaking a hell of a lot of sense. Everything will sell at the right price. Ultimately that's the nub of it. I guess at present the price buyers want to pay is just not acceptable to sellers.

But as prices keep falling - I think sentiment is turning and there is a realisation that tomorrow's offer is likely to be lower than todays. NE, rising mortgage rates, divorce, death, relocation, redundancy and a need to move - will ultimately force some people to have to take a price they don't want to. These forced sellers will then set a new precedent for their local areas and outcompete other properties which in turn will look overpriced and poor value. Hence see above - why we want out now and are priced accordingly.

I'm a buyer. Cash buyer, currently renting. We want a 4 bedroom house. Finding one in my area which is not asking the exact same price as those houses were going for several years ago is very difficult. I did finally find one, leapt on it asap, and hopefully the survey will come out alright. I know this is a terrible time to buy, for all the reasons Yellow gives above. I know if I bought a house at the price most would like to sell them for here that I would lose that money within 2-3 years. :( So hearing that it is a buyer's market is amusing to me. Anyone buying right now has to be aware that they won't be selling again anytime soon, because those prices are going to continue to go down for a while longer.

I just had this conversation with two friends from the town I live in. Both bought their houses for 50k-ish, and both houses tripled in price over the last ten years. Truly. That's not normal; that's a bubble.

I sold my last house last September as I had been watching this unfold. He house 2 doors down is now on the market at 10% less and is not sold. It s bigger too. The market has peaked and now t is damage limitation. Unless you can afford to reduce I think staying put and making your home suit you by extending etc is the way to go for now. Chasing the market down is soul destroying better to cut now. Even though prices are 30% ish inflated most people would still buy at 15-20% as there is such a shortage.

It is mad.
We spent more on this house than we wanted to because a) it was only house dh liked in 2 years of looking! and b) we hope to be here til retirement age.
Our mortgage is only 3 x Dhs salary but it still feels a lot when our first home 13 years ago cost £53k and the deposit was £2.5k!!

However, despite completely gutting it and spending £££££ on our old house we did not make our fortune on it!
We remortgaged twice to do major works (extension, new windows, loft room etc etc) but we were still left with £20k for a deposit dor this house in the middle of a recession so in many ways we were lucky.
Like oddly, I too got very itchy feet last year..I said to dh if we don't sell now at a reduced price we will be stuck here forever :(
A big warning sign for me was the lack of mortgage products offering 85-90% mortgages....from pages and pages of products to 2.
2.
That told me all I needed to know,
Good luck everyone x