Isthe market quiet because of school holidays?

[LizzieMint]

Our house went on the market at the start of the school holidays (bad timing, but couldn't be helped). We're in an area where houses don't come up often and are usually snapped up within a week. So far we've have an open day that no one came to and two viewings. House is in good nick and priced according to the selling price of the last equivalent house sold nearby, which sold just before the holidays.
Is it the holidays making things so quiet? Just getting really twitchy about quite how little interest we've had!

Same situation as you. Aug has always been quiet. Not much interest for past two weeks but apparently it will pick up again on bank holiday so hang in there.

It seems the market has now cooled a bit and less demand than a few months ago.

There has been increased 'negativity' recently hinting that prices might decrease 5-15% so I think this has affected sentiment a bit.

If you follow your local market on RightMove, you should install 'Property Tracker' as it tracks price movements. I know in my area, around a quarter have decreased, some I've noticed have come off and then back again (maybe sale fell through) and some have gone from Sale section to Rent section!

Ending on a more positive note, there are buyers! I am one we're still looking for the right one and am personally not that bothered about the negative news.

Yes. Holidays are always quiet. We have it in July in Scotland.

It isn't the holiday's , it's the bursting of the bubble .

The country is skint , the banks are still in trouble. buying is going into a phase called " not a good idea to buy in a falling market" there's a long way to go to the bottom , so anyone serious about selling quick needs to lop at least 20% to get a sale. Sold subject to contract is code for " the chain collapsed"

I hope not roneik we haven't had much of a bubble here to burst! I'll have a look at the property tracker, not much comes on the market here though. (We're in a small village)

Absolute rubbish roneik.

Jeeze Roneik, are you going to pop up on every thread being the voice of doom?!

Why should it be doom because I believe that it's the end for property prices rising?. Look at the facts , for three months prices have been slipping downward. Fact at any time soon the rates may go up. Fact millions of people cant afford property ownership whereby a few years ago they could. At what point do you think that wages not going up will affect affordability ?
Ten years of stagnation enough for you? because that's about how long wages have been below inflation. Bury your head in the sand if you want. We will see who is right . The economy is in a property price dependant precarious state.It's like watching a comedy, people believing that they have bought an asset that is only worth what someone will pay, and believing that at some point people will not or wont be able to pay the asking price.

The market definitely peaked in March no 2 ways. There is no spring summer bounce now as everything is dependent on finance. Our agent has been having a nightmare with things falling through and no selling and there are reductions slowly appearing which is a good thing imo. The telegraph reported last week that there are more seller than buyers for the first time in ages so that does make people picky. Even the election won't affect it as falls is not seen as the big negative it was even 2 years ago. The land registry data is 3 months behind and prices have flattened since then. Can you afford to reduce it a bit? What feedback did you get?

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/houseprices/11042775/How-Augusts-slump-in-asking-prices-compares-with-the-five-worst-monthly-falls.html Sentiment is everything at the start of a decline and it really feels very like 2007 amongst all my property mates Lots of them sold up their BTL in Jan/Feb and are not intending to buy any more.

I think it's all down to market sentiment. Sellers tend to lag behind the news, while buyers tend to react much more quickly. That's because buyers usually watch the news and the property sites avidly; they get obsessed with it. When I was looking to buy, I checked rightmove and the newspaper property sites a few times a day! And I couldn't understand why, back in Jan, when there were 30 or so buyers at every open house in London, more property owners weren't trying to cash in.

But sellers aren't so active, they're more reactive. Prices started really accelerating in Sept 2013. It took around 6 months for this to filter through to the mainstream media - it started with a couple of news stories about open houses here and there on property pages, and then gradually built up until it crept off the property pages and onto the headline pages. By January, it had become dinner party conversation and so homeowners who hadn't been actively paying attention to house prices were suddenly being hit over head with the news that their house was worth a lot more. It took them a few months to make their decision to sell, get their act in gear, arrange an estate agent, etc. That took us up until April/May. So, come June, there was a flood of new properties onto the market.

But, unfortunately for the sellers, by May, buyers had already been struggling with open houses and sealed bids for 9 months. They were fed up - they'd lost patience and just couldn't get themselves worked up into a frenzy any more. In London, the richest/least cautious had already been creamed off the top by winning the sealed bids. Add to that news about poss interest rate rises, and talk in the media of a bubble ... and the fear of being priced out forever and the sense of urgency that leads to open houses and sealed bids started to wane. This meant that fewer people turned up to open houses, and agents started to have to actually phone up buyers, and this all led to buyers being more reassured that they could take their time. Those who had put in offers before April found they couldn't get finance because of the MMR. So all of that combined together to create a drop in buyers just at the very same time as there was a big rise in sellers.

So yep, it is the summer holidays, but combined with all the stuff above! It's psychology.

I don't agree 100% with Noddy and Roneik though because there did used to be those 30 buyers for every open house in London just 3 months ago. So, if the sellers get fed up and withdraw their properties from sale, the buyer-seller balance will reverse again. Prices won't continue rising forever, but they might not drop. It depends on market sentiment, media reporting, etc, much more than actual market fundamentals. Unless the fundamentals change drastically.

I think the govt just keep throwing schemes at it but it can't last forever Even London is in reverse which I think is key. There were 30 for each open house I agree. But I sold in Feb had an open day 10 buyers day one all offered. The guy who proceeded had mortgage offer etc and he got turned down on affordability right at the last minute. FFW to July and we had 3 proceedable viewers this time and went with the one with cash as chains are breaking a lot. I think MMR has affected it downwards just as Help to Buy helped the rise. We need some sort of correction as people need to have a home

I agree, even though I bought recently, I hope for a correction. Sellers have gotten greedy. But the thing is the correction would have to be massive to make it affordable now to FTBs. I had an offer accepted on one place after sealed bids at £25k above asking price (I know, I feel embarrassed typing that!) and then a few days before exchange they decided actually... no ... they wanted an extra £75k! So that's £100,000 over their additional asking price! I said no, obviously. They waited a couple of months and remarketed in June. No offers in 4 weeks, so they dropped their price by £25k and two weeks later they had an offer... I don't know how much for of course. So even though that'll appear as a reduction on rightmove, it's still £75k above their original asking price of 5 months earlier, which was already v high for the area. So sadly even if we do see falls, it'll just be from crazy crazy prices to crazy prices.

Interesting comments here, another thing we've noticed is a lot of supply coming onto the market although in our situation hardly anything that is 'decent' that we are excited about which is really frustrating!
Today we viewed a nice property for 210 asking price, which a couple of months ago sold for 220k (same house but different plot), I think it's a pretty good deal...just wish I loved it enough to offer on !

Supply here huge but as you say a lot of over priced rubbish that just sits. I keep an eye on this and normally 30 houses a day here listed 40 plus when it's booming Last 2 weeks 60 plus every day

Hmm, very interesting points, but to me seems like this mostly applies to London/SE? Where I am (SW), apart from in Bristol, there doesn't seem to have been a big spike in prices, more a steady rise. (Our house is on the market for approx 25% more than we paid for it 7 years ago)
In my area too, there's been a slight drop in numbers of houses on the market month on month since March, and in my postcode there are only 2 houses currently for sale. In the wider area in total, there are about 50 properties for sale. We're not a first time buyer property (4 bed detached) so that cuts down the pool of buyers, I know. Oh well, will keep my fingers crossed things pick up in September!

roneik what the hell are you talking about?

SSTC is not code for 'chain has collapsed. Quite the opposite. SSTC means exactly what it says. It tells people that the property is in the process of a sale but has not yet completed, and therefore it is taking no more viewings as it is considered unavailable.

The only reason estate agents like to tell us this, is a) to boast that they sold it and b) to keep a healthy presence on the internet when their actual available stock might be very low.

I am trying to buy at the moment and there seems to be a good number of opportunistic sellers on the market in my area. They are all up for top dollar in the hope of a peak price sale, but most of them are rented out so I think if they don't sell for close to the asking price the owners will just continue to sit on them. I don't think they are serious about selling, or they'd be priced more realistically.

Having said that, I completed in June on a house which was marketed at 240k and I got it for 225k. It sat on the market for a quite a while before I bought it, hence why they were open to offers. Since my offer was accepted on that house several others of comparable size/style on the same estate have come on the market at 250k and have ALL gone under offer very, very quickly.

I am now finding it really hard to buy something else for less than 250k. There is a glut of certain types of house for around 180-220k but they are not the ones I am interested in.

I am also finding that a huge number of houses advertised as being for sale on right move are no longer available at all, and quite some way along in the completion process. But they are not being flagged as under offer or SSTC because there is so little good stock on the market that agents want to pad out their internet presence and get you phoning up to register with them in the hope that they can flog you something else. It's really winding me up and wasting so much of my time.

Yes I think, in London, the crappy quality of the flats currently on the market might indicate that a high proportion of what's available are BTLers trying to cash in. That's why there seem to be far more ex-council and modern blocks and all the period flats look damp or dingy or tiny dodgy conversions. Definitely fewer well-maintained Victorian and Georgian ones with a homely feel.

Reports of malnutrition from GPs becoming rampant.
Supermarket food sales like for like down several percent (historical precedent )

Wages stagnant for 10 years

Self employed incomes down sharply

Zero hours contracts
Sanctioned job seekers counted as employed in statistics from government

The coming interest rate hikes

People downsizing where they buy groceries

The coming election and the real cut’s that will come

Peoples growing awareness that there is no recovery

Not doom but all facts

Any moment now people will be gathering every penny they can and this will be impacting negatively the economy.

Fear is setting in and you can see that in the beginnings of a house price crash that has been growing for three months

Sold subject to contract is code for the chain is collapsing

Local press reports our area has risen by 20% since this time last year. It was nuts in the spring, and since schools went back it seems to be going nuts again, with new properties going under offer or to closing date as soon as they are on the market. We are near Aberdeen so there is the 'oil bubble' up here but no sign of much slowing down. Of course a yes vote could change all that dramatically but that's a whole other thread!