Struggling to sell house, any others in same boat?

[iflavour]

Afternoon all, we have had our house up for sale for 6months in brentwood, essex. 4bed semi, recently refurbed, 500kprice.

Solid wave of viewers but no offers from those that can move straight away. Feedback we get is "lovely house, price is sensible, but we need to sell our house first".

We have priced the house 10% lower than last house on the street, 12months ago. We have had 4 offers, all about 10% lower than asking, but all haven't even started the sale of their property. We progressed with 2 offers, but they ended pulling out as they found themselves in the same boat (no non-contingent buyers).

I am sensible and realistic that market is weaker, and very open to negotiation to trade at lower level (the value is what someone is prepared to pay).

We have taken house of the market for now and will re-list post the half term return. When re-relist we will drop by another 10%, to see if any first-time buyers can get tempted.

I just wanted to canvas the mighty mumsnet knowledge base on what kinda trends experiences you are all finding regarding selling a house in this market.

Thanks in advance.

@iflavour fair enough, they certainly have the chat!

Op, hang in there. If Beresfords can’t sell it, no one can at this point i’d say. I’ve always sold through them. If you are taking their advice on price? Agree Balgores have all the chat but no action. Are you in Pilgrims Hatch? That seems to be the only area of Brentwood which is taking time to sell?

Spickle - I wish your son luck, but sub £200k properties in Brentwood are like Hen’s teeth at the moment 😩

Pradaqueen thank you - we are searching a wide radius around Brentwood and will try to get something in a reasonable location. I have a feeling DH and I will be gifting money towards it and looking at do-uppers. Luckily I work in conveyancing so that will be (nearly) free!

@Pradaqueen morning, nope we are around homestead area. Good news overnight, one of the non/proceedables that offered before has just so

(Sorry trigger finger)

Has just sold. They still love our place, so will make an offer today. Fingers crossed. Keep you all informed as and when.

Sounds great OP. Best of luck. That does sound like a bargain for the Homesteads!

I'm in property industry (conveyancing searches) and we have been noticing a drop of instruction towards end of last year, which hasn't yet fully recovered. Brexit has had a great impact and many people are very unsure about investing in properties.
you probably know this all already, however if you have any questions that relates to surveys, searches or even solicitors recommendations (we cover the whole country) please let me know (I wont charge) but would be happy to navigate you the right direction if I can.

Spickle - I saw this on my right move auction feed and thought of your son. Technically West Horndon is Brentwood in terms of secondary school catchments etc. Obviously this is a guide price but it is about 300m from the station so great potential for rental. I haven’t read the legal pack on it, but the C2C line is considerably cheaper than the L’pool st line (and more reliable at present) so many towns on the line are gathering increased capital gains.

FOrgot the link 🤦‍♀️

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-64664599.html

Pradaqueen - Ooh, I'd not spotted that one! Definitely worth looking into, will show my son when he gets home tonight. Thank you!

Any news iflavour? We had our agent around today & have added some new photos to update our listing. We're considering a premium Rightmove listing too. Not expecting anything so can't be disappointed..

I would be careful regarding what estate agent you have as well from my experience.

We were buying a house and our house was on the market. We didn’t have a buyer at the point we viewed a house and fell in love. We offered full asking price and the seller turned us down as we weren’t immediately able to proceed. Wouldn’t open to any conversation.
However the buyers estate agent hadn’t fully confirmed our status as we were in fact buying independent to the sale of our property ( we had two mortgages running for 6 months and paid extra stamp for second home then claimed it back via a rebate very easily) we were in fact chain free but they wouldn’t even open to this possibility. We made an offer on another house 3 weeks later and were moved in. As far as I am aware that house stayed in the market another 6 months before going below asking.

Be careful your estates agent isn’t also screening out people without your day so based on little information.
As a second note the property we bought was meant to be chain free (all paperwork said so) and push comes to shove and they were actually part of a chain. It didn’t matter to us as we were chain free and obviously still had our first house but it was very annoying they lied about their position. So these chain free buyers you are looking for may not actually be chain free as well

Had same issue with our chain Star. Our buyers buyer turned out not to be the first time buyer they said they were when it transpired that they'd had a previous defaulted mortgage payment. Hence the reason they were turned down for another mortgage. Plus our vendor lied about the fact that the house she was buying was chain free.Turned out that not only were they buying on, but the people they were buying from were also buying on as well. Our chain of 5 turned into a chain of 7 or 8. Our vendor also lied about the parking situation. It was only picked up during conveyancing that the house had only 1 parking space & not the 3 the details specified.

Immaterial now though. When our chain collapsed we couldn't find a new buyer & a year on from our open day we're back to square one.

Same situation. Been on the market since January, loads of viewings and no offers at all even though it is cheap and the EA knows I'll take a low offer just to sell it. Everyone too cagey about what their's might sell for. I'm going to take it off the market and have a rethink.

Evening all, sorry for tardy reply, been busy weekend.

So, we have an offer from the couple that viewed before and have become proceedable.

Price is 10% lower than asking, but Flat to where we would have relisted.

So, now starts the long path of trying to exchange and complete. We are staying cautious, pragmatic but optimistic.

Fingers crossed, it aint easy out there.