London property: sell or rent - what would you do?

[Nickname1980]

I have been trying to sell my London flat for a while now and, while I'm getting viewers, only one very low offer - 20% off the asking price (which isn't surprising given the market!). It isn't over-priced and is in great condition. I'm also trying to buy close by, but because I can't get an offer that I can afford to sell for - I can't make an offer on anything else. And there isn't much coming on anyway. It's actually crazy how few properties are coming on!

Post-brexit, it seems very uncertain out there! And it's August, which is a quiet month anyway.

So my question is: would you try and sell and buy now in this market? Or just rent out and rent? (Staying is a possibility, but not sure I want to do that!)

In the nicest possible way, if no one is buying or making offers, then it is over priced. Sorry.

Nothing is shifting in my neighbourhood
Lots of price reductions
If you want to sell you need to drop your price

I'd totally leap to that conclusion too,Na0second, but it's actually on the low-end of comparible flats in the area and our neighbour sold a year ago (exactly the same layout, but ours is a bit more polished if anything) for slightly more (£5k) than ours is on for.

But perhaps, in this new market, that is too ambitious and maybe it is overpriced!

I agree with the others. Your home is only really worth what others are willing to pay. If you want to sell soon, your price needs to drop.

A lot of people think renting is really easy, but don't forget you would have lots of responsibilities as a landlord, such as maintaining the property and repairs. Plus, if you end up with a crap tenant, evicting them may not be a straight forward process! So, if you are going to consider renting out the property, I think you should do a lot of research first.

Yes you're probably all right! Dropping the price does leave us with suddenly not being able to afford much of an upgrade though . Argh! What a tricky market!

I've rented out before, it's so much hassle. I just can't decide when the right time to sell/buy is!

Don't be afraid of house prices dropping if it doesn't put you in negative equity. If you accept an offer 20% below asking price does that still give you a reasonable amount of equity to take to your next property? If you are buying in the same area then those sellers are in the same boat and your offer at 20% less than they hoped for will be the best they can expect.

You're right a drop would be beneficial if everything dropped by 20%, cexuwaleizbu, but I don't think other sellers in my neighbourhood have realised that yet. Everything is pretty much being listed at the sort of price they were 6months /a year ago! (Mine included.)

I saw a flat on Saturday that made me doubt it as five people were viewing (which seemed a lot for August/post brexit!). And I thought the flat was expensive! One viewer walked out basically saying "it's great, I think we'll take it" to her husband. Made me pretty nervous!

I would hold off selling at the moment until it ripples out and the houses you want to buy drop in price also. Can you stay put for a little longer? It makes no sense for you to sell in a dropping market but buy in a rising one.

We can stay put, but I don't want to , cath (growing family, groaning-under-the-weight-of-us-flat!). It all feels so uncertain st the moment... It does seem like that's the best thing to do!

Anyone managed to sell in London, post-brexit? (A sale that wasn't agreed pre-brexit) What kind of price did you get?

Hi OP- I'd be inclined to agree with what the others have said re price.

We are looking to buy in SE London and there is so much stuff that has been on the market for 2 months plus with priced reductions as well, but not shifting.

When we see something that we like and are keen to buy, we will probably go in with an offer of around 85% of asking price.

To be honest, looking at the land registry prices, quite a few owners have already made in excess of 100/150k profit with some only buying a coupe of years ago and making no visible improvements to their property.

I appreciate that owners need the higher prices for them to 'move up' the ladder, but everything round here seems to have ground to a halt.

Once the FTBs stop making offers/buying, the whole market seems to stop moving.

Whereabouts are you (roughly)?

We're in Hackney, Turquoise, and yes - I was thinking the same about the first time buyers! We live in a bit of a ftb place at the moment. I would be so happy if everything dropped a little... I find London prices as obscene as everyone, but larger properties locally are just being listed at the same sort of price they have been for a while.

Did you have somewhere to sell? 85% is useful! I think this is a % I'll keep in my mind!

We don't have anything to sell so we are FTB/chain free.

OH did sell his property earlier on this year, but it was up north and he made a fraction of the profits seen down here in London/SE.

The sale of the property gave us approx 12k to add to our less than impressive deposit- that was after a good 12 years of ownership & repairs/running costs!

Places in London prob made/were going up by 10K every few months

There is a lot of London property that has been on the market since the beginning of the year.
Monthly sales are about 3000 per month (pre Brexit) in London. On Rightmove alone there are 43,000 currently on the market, with 800 new instructions or reductions per day.