Sellers roll call! How many viewings are you gettingin this stagnant market?

[Pixiedust1973]

I thought it would be nice to update each other with our progress as I seem to of lost the other sellers thread!

My house has been on the market on & off since April last year. We found a house we liked, got a buyer before putting in an offer. Had a low offer but managed to negotiate them up & the house we want down to an acceptable level, just! Turns out after many months that their buyer can't proceed so we decide to cut off from our old agents & start afresh with a 25k reduction for quick sale, making us without question the best house in the area for the price! Comparables being 40-50k higher! Im in an expensive part of Surrey btw, hence silly money for very little!

Been on 55 days now & had 11 viewings, 2 cheeky try their luck offers we can't accept because they're 30k below our asking price already reduced by 25k. Id say that given how stagnant the market is we're getting a reasonable amount of interest. Getting lots more hits online since the new year & hopefully its only a matter of time. The viewers we are getting are proceedable viewers, mainly chain free. Probably explains the low offers! Had a second viewing on Friday & awaiting their feedback today. Thought they were keen but the later in the day it gets the more nervous im getting!

No they haven’t. I think they’d probably like to buy. We have suggested to their estate agents they view ours with a view to doing a deal but it worries me greatly that we have buyers and the owners of where we want to buy haven’t found anything. There’s only one other house we’d consider but it’s priced very highly probably more than it’s worth so maybe not a consideration.

It’s really hard when there’s not much on to buy!!

So infuriating when that happens Banquo

Tricky situation there Kate. You'd imagine they discussed the financial split & she knew how much money to expect prior to them putting the house on the market though. Its not as if not selling is an option for them, so she'll have to either reevaluate what she can get or move into rented!

Sounds to me like these people are complete fantasists & timewasters Onceuponatimethen They could offer 100k over asking price & its still meaningless. What on earth makes people think that its a good idea to offer on a house when they are by no means in a position to proceed?

Price wise, personally I'm looking at paying ideally no more than about 600k, perhaps a little more if we get a decent amount for ours & or the house is immaculate, so we will look at places priced up to 650k with the idea of dropping up to 50k depending on how realistic the asking price is to begin with. Its a bit of a risk, but so many vendors have been given unrealistic expectations of their properties value nowadays that a 50k drop at that level is pretty reasonable tbh! Hope you have better luck this week!

So our viewings have completely dried up 3 weeks in. We've had 10 viewings, 1 second viewing (weekend before last who has disappeared with no feedback) and 1 who was really keen and was apparently going to book a second viewing - and has now gone AWOL. We had ZERO viewings last weekend, and nothing so far booked next weekend.

It's really frustrating, but I've looked on Rightmove to gauge how we are doing compared to the market. We are a 3 bed flat, so I've done a search on all 2 bed + flats sorted by date listed, and including SSTC. There is nothing at all that has gone under offer since we listed 3 weeks ago, plenty of reductions, and the most recent under offer was listed beginning of March.

So the market seems to be dead as a dodo.

So hard to know what to do. I'm thinking we give it another shot for a couple of weeks, if still nothing we bite the bullet and go to OIEO our bottom line to see if it generates more interest (will put us on cusp of different RM bracket). This is a £50k/9% drop.

If that leads to nothing I'm thinking we come off the market and wait until something happens to get things moving again. I can't really bear just sitting on the market for months and months, especially as things are just likely to get slower over summer.

There's very little to buy either so all seems a bit futile at the moment (though I know I'm probably being very impatient in all of this!).

Sorry to hear your viewings have dried up too. Yes I feel the same - we will give it a shot at 20k lower I think and then give up if no sensible offers by then.

We have the opposite problem- lots of viewers and no one wants it viewings started on Thursday, have had 23 people through the house and the feedback is that it’s too small. We have a floor plan with dimensions and paid extra for a video walkthrough, which I think shows the house pretty accurately, so I am massively frustrated that it’s something we can’t change. Its 1100sqft and has 3 double bedrooms, so I thought it was a pretty decent FTB house. Is ‘too small’ code for overpriced? We’ve seen a place we love, and I really don’t want to miss out on it!

What’s going on with everyone? Anyone had and more viewings or offers?

We heard nothing more from the people who were putting in low offers so it’s back to the drawing board for us. Think we will come down 20k and switch agents. More hassle but hoping it will help us sell.

We put ours on the market and sold withing 3 weeks.We are relocating to Devon,and having awful trouble trying to buy a property. The area we want to be in is very popular and 1 bungalow we saw was snapped up in 24 hours. Bungalows are as rare as hens teeth where we want to be.

Wow user that you sold so fast - congrats!!

I’ve bought a property before by telling agents I’m ready to make an offer and if I get shown the right property I will make an offer on first view. I got told about a flat that was coming on the market on a Friday. I asked to view on the Thursday, made offer and got it accepted! Not in Devon but London though. Maybe worth buttering up the local agents?

No offers here, got another viewing today so we'll see what happens with that. We have a weekly call with the agent so think we'll end up discussing dropping the price to get some interest. Been on nearly 4 weeks now and only 5 viewings-first time we've sold though so I have no clue whether that's good or not!

Viewings have dried up here too (8 weeks on the market). Decided yesterday that we will knock 5% off guide price and see if that generates interest but not feeling very confident.

I’m not sure it’s entirely price with us because I think the market is particularly bad!! Our agent said sellers can’t keep dropping their price indefinitely.

I hope your viewing today goes well, team!

And ghost I hope dropping the price works

Can I join?!

Been on the market since start of Feb, 19 viewings (and one more booked for this Sat) no
second viewings and no offers. Most feedback (from those that bothered) was due to stuff out of our control. All say house is beautifully presented and decorated etc etc, just seems to be so slow- we’ve come down £25k but still nada!

We’ve decided to remortgage to buy to let to release some equity so we don’t lose on our dream house (offer accepted on that yay). However, what with extra stamp duty and less of a deposit, its really not ideal and I’m really stuck to know what to do- take it off market, rent for a couple years, then sell in time to reclaim the stamp (but maybe we won’t even sell then) or continue to keep it on market and just hope a buyer turns up?! I’m in West Kent, easily commutable to London, and it just seems like such an odd market, less nice similar sized houses on a less desirable road were snapped up last summer but now it seems so dead!

The market is bad / odd / strange / whatever is because first time buyers who underpin the market simply can’t afford to buy at current prices.

How do you expect that to change?

Hi Ruby! Are you a seller or buyer?

I think buying houses has become increasingly divorced from average incomes. It can be a huge stretch to buy a first property I know.

Welcome Peabody! Yes it’s sxacrly the same in this area - last year things elling no problem hit this year very little action at all. But some are selling - there since Xmas close to me so hopefully stuff will move for all of us given time.

Three not there!

It can be a huge stretch to buy a first property I know.

It's beyond a huge stretch now...for those without parental assistance, it's impossible.

In my area, a small 2-bed terrace on a busy A-road costs 17 times the local average salary. No amount of government props can support this completely unsustainable situation.

I hear you RubyTrees. The house price situation is bonkers.

What do you think can/should happen to address this?

We're also in a situation where the market has died and there is a finite number of first time buyers looking, so once you've had the initial flurry of viewings the market is dead. Even big price drops don't seem to be working.

I would be quite happy with a drop in prices (as long as it was consistent throughout the market) as it would make our step up easier. Problem is, a lot of people aren't happy with that. So the supply completely dries up as people who don't have to do move, don't. This is what we are finding. Even if we do sell, there is barely anything on the market for us to buy.

I honestly don't know how this can be resolved. Whilst we are lucky and could weather a fairly significant drop (again, as long as it was consistent) but I know many can't. Prices are definitely going down round here (SE London), but it seems to be stalling the market rather than making more homes available at cheaper prices.

Exactly Friday! No one is going to sell if it results in negative equity for them. So people just sit on their property. Things were moving round here last year but now only the most desirable or keenly priced properties seem to be going.

Ruby, I do get it. A large part of my family are in social housing - even though they have jobs they couldn’t buy on the private market. I think the group who will never be able to access home owning has always existed but it is getting bigger and bigger.

And people sitting on properties is exactly what happened in the credit crunch. People didn’t sell so agitate if suppply and no real price falls.

Agitate? I mean shortage