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!

Can I join?

We have actually accepted an offer twice but both have fallen through 😣

First offer within the week of putting on the market in Jan. They lost their buyer, we gave them a month but they didn't find anyone so we went back on.

Second offer 10 days later. Got all the way to exchange and on the day buyer admitted marital problems and pulled out.

We went back on 2 weeks ago, 2 viewings last weekend - both with properties to sell - nothing since.

This whole process is shit and the system needs changing.

So sorry to hear about what’s happened with your sale. I agree!! Needs changing to be like on the continent where you’re locked in sooner in the buying process.

I don't understand why anyone would be embarrassed to make a low offer. It's surely better to make a serious offer at a very low rate than none at all? It's not an offer, say no if you like.

My mother has sold at £40k below asking price (65k below what she tried for last year). The operative word being 'sold'. I looked at a retirement bungalow for her at £400k, terrible place in a good location, needed basically rebuilding to make it at all nice. I would have offered £325k as it needed about £65k of work over several months. Why be embarrassed about that?

Well done your mum for selling!

I personally wouldn’t view properties on much above my bottom line as I don’t think many sellers can afford to take a big cut not knowing whether the seller they approach will do the same. We would sell for about 30k under asking at most, but we don’t actually need to move - just want to for convenience. So I guess we can afford to wait.

Up stupidly early here cleaning in case of views this weekend and we go on holiday tomorrow at the crack of dawn! Nothing booked in yet but we had a last minute one over the last bank holiday weekend so I’m thinking best to be prepared

Teamrocket how did your viewing go?

@Onceuponatimethen it was a buyer doing a recce of the area, EA said they viewed 30 properties in 2 days so I'm not holding out much hope! Have you had any more interest?

Spoken to the EA yesterday and we've decided to drop the price by 5% to get some interest going. It seems to have worked as within an hour of the reduction going live we had a viewing booked for today. Hoping we can get some more over the weekend, keeping my fingers crossed.

Team you never know - they might like yours but I know what you mean - we’ve had some interest which wasn’t that serious and it’s goid to pace yourself. No more interest for us but most sellers locally here are saying the same

Goid good!!

we've been on since april. Loads of viewings - EA says ours is the most popular property they have BUT only 2 second viewings and no offers.

Reduced price last week and still loads of viewings.

Buyers seem to want a lot for their money at the moment, but we are not prepared to reduce any further. They want to be able to just move into a show home and do no work at all. Feels strange to me as I would always want to my own stamp on

Poppinder it’s good you are so popular!!

We aren’t but did get an offer just for a large reduction. We don’t think we can take it because if we can’t get our seller we want to buy from in future to take a similar drop then we would lose out. We would go into rented if we don’t find a property immediately but then could end up out of pocket if the market bounced back up before we find somewhere

I'd feel better being popular if it actually resulted in offers

That is a very a difficult position to be in onceuponatime

Hi all!

My DP and I are on the other side of this. We're in London and have been looking since last August, however the market is so slow and there's very little to choose from.
We are FTB's with a relatively small budget, so looking at the lower end of the market. We are both architects and would like something that, like Poppinder is saying, isn't in a perfect condition and we can put our own stamp on and even extend in a couple of years time.

Recently, we went on a viewing for a flat that 'needs everything doing', has damp issues, an overgrown garden, used to have a tenant, but is now sitting empty. It also doesn't really tick all of our boxes and could be quite challenging to extend, however we think we would be able to deal with these issues over time.

This particular flat has been on the market for almost 2 months and the vendor has reduced the price once. Before we went on the viewing we were very honest with the estate agent that we wouldn't be offering full asking price, to which the estate agent said that the vendor was very keen to sell.

Due to the condition of the property, we started with a low offer of 15% under the listed asking price, which the vendor declined, we then went up to 10% with a view to see if we could meet in the middle (we would be okay with going up to 5%, so trying to soften the vendor up a bit before our final offer), however the vendor didn't give us a counter offer and the estate agent has told us that the vendor is so offended that she didn't want to hear another offer from us. We're not sure if this is the estate agent playing games, or if we should just give up, bearing in mind our offer is the only offer they have had.

I've been reading this thread for some insight into the sellers perspective. Would really like some advice on how to deal with this situation.

@BuildingThings we’re not currently selling but sold my dad’s flat recently when he had to move into a nursing home. I got really irritated by people playing games. Offering 15% below when you’re happy to pay up to 5% below is counterproductive imo as rather than softening the vendors you’ve ended up pissing them off. Presumably they’ve already taken the state of the property into account when lowering the price so you’re asking them to take another hit which could completely change their options from here on. I would much rather have someone make an offer which was a realistic reflection of what they were willing to pay (with maybe a bit of wriggle room) than go through the whole palaver of offer and counter offer. They’re also not just thinking of the price they’re getting but of how you’re going to behave during the whole process - if they think you’re going to play games and not treat them with respect then they’re not going to want to get locked in with you.

From my perspective you're behaving completely normally buildongthings and you have a vendor who is being extremely precious. I think all you can do is say that you remain interested and if the vendor changes their mind to let you know, and then to move on and keep looking.

@noitsnotteatimeyet Thanks for your input, it's interesting, I can certainly see what you mean from the vendors point of view. This is our second ever offer so a little unsure of the etiquette.

Just a little bit more information; the estate agent sent us the damp report with a quote of works that needs to be done, there is rising damp which is on the party wall and the work requires a party wall award and most likely fixing up on both sides (neighbour and the flat we're interested in) this work will cost about 10k and take 3 months to fully dry out before we would be able to redecorate. Hence why - we simply wouldn't be able to go up to 5% below (as the work would cut into our deposit). So, we were hoping to work with the vendor and meet in the middle and really don't want to overpay for a flat that is in no way 'perfect' if we could.

Sorry didn't mean to 'dripfeed' the full story, was self conscious that my other post just felt a bit too long.

I'm really pleased to find this thread! We are selling in Buckinghamshire, commutable to London. We've been on since April and have had about 6 viewings and no offers. We've put an offer on a house, which can't be accepted yet as we aren't proceedable, the house has 3 others offers on it...all of us in the same position! We are thinking of taking our house off the market and trying again next year if we lose the house we've or an offer on.

@BuildingThings having just bought in London at a hefty discount (15% +) I'd imagine the EA is probably game playing/trying to scare you. We offered well under asking price on 2 properties. Just not prepared to pay pre brexit prices especially as the London market is clearly drifting down with no signs of stopping.

Both initial offers were met with the same complaints of "how offensive" "that is insulting" etc etc but both ended up wanting to sell to us without us going up much. You have to be prepared to walk away from the table though & some vendors simply won't be in a position to take a low offer if they've over extended themselves.

I think EA's are in a tricky situation where there is not much stock so they have to price high to get the listing & then it can be very hard to manage a vendors expectations down. 9 times out of 10 if a property is not selling it simply is priced too high! 2 months isn't thatttttt long on the market though especially currently.

Good luck, stand up to the EA's and remember if you're not embarrassed by your first offer it's too high!

@annandale thank you for your advice, that's exactly what we've done. Hoping to find something else which will take my mind off this one.

@Kamma89 can I ask how much your original offer was and how long were they on the market for prior to you putting in the offers?

Thank you both for your replies, it reinforced my confidence in our original assessment! I understand that it must be tough being an EA right now, constantly giving 'bad news' to the vendors.

I think you have to bear in mind that not all buyers are desperate to move. A 15% reduction is quite steep and I wouldn’t accept that on ours. I would be thinking these people will demand further huge amounts off at survey stage and then gazzunder at the last minute as well saying market has dropped so we want another 20k off

@Building we went 20% under original asking price (had been reduced but we found old listing with higher price) settled on 16% under. Had been on for just over 4 months & needed work which I don't think had been properly priced in. Vendor had bought decades ago so probably not as price sensitive/reliant as others. The EA had told us to make an offer & was then really rude when we did we did back up our offer though we facts & figures (previous sales, current market reductions, cost of works etc).

@onceupon I disagree. More likely to have tricky buyers/gazundering if they feel they've overpaid at the start. 15% might seem steep but really depends on location, state of house & how badly the EA had valued. A lot of the stuff we viewed had come down 15% from original asking but agonisingly slowly. Dropping 2-3% every month. Not a good look.

It’s really interesting hearing all the different views! I guess maybe it depends where you live and the asking price bracket.

I guess one option for us would be to accept our very low offer but if we can’t get our seller to accept equivalent reduction we pull out - but if we can’t find somewhere and do rented we just won’t know so it would be v risky for us!

The housing market is up and down all the time. If the house isn't selling it doesn't mean the housing market is stagnant, it means you've overpriced yourselves. A house is only worth what someone will pay for it. It annoys me that people don't seem to acknowledge this and insist it must be on for the correct price and the fact it won't sell is somehow unfortunate/unforeseen

I'm absolutely not saying that any seller has to accept a low offer. Just that it's not an insult to make one, it's a normal business transaction.