Anyone else frustrated with the housing market?

[Neron]

Desperate to move and just not much on to buy at all or those that are on, are not suitable. I just want to buy a house...I know it's first world problems. Last purchase fell apart at exchange and we've been struggling since

I believe it is the EA’s here that are causing the problem.

They are attempting to drive the market up by overvaluing. Sellers are attracted to their inflated valuations and list with them.

Those sellers are then reluctant to reduce their price because they are relying on the accuracy of the valuation.

Accepting a reduction changes the dynamics of their buying position.

@housebuyingistheworst

It doesn't work like that on Rightmove.

If you delete a property listing it must stay off for 14 weeks before it will show again as a new listing.

They are attempting to drive the market up by overvaluing

Can you help me to understand how that helps EAs?

Drive the price up, buyers think "you must be joking", don't buy, nothing sells = no money.

There are of course agents who over price in order to win instructions, but perhaps greedy sellers are equally to blame.

We also now have a lot of houses coming on for 'modern auction' - these really infuriate me as they are not your typical auction houses, just standard houses so you can get mortgages on them, not repossessed etc. I personally feel they are designed to get bidding wars and the buyer pays all the fees, including the fees to the EA. I may be wrong, but we enquired about one and that's what we took from it. Wish people would sell their houses normally instead of faffing on things like that

Our sale fell through and the house we wanted to buy has now gone under offer. :-(

I'm really sorry to hear about your sale falling through @Lookingsparkly, and that the one you wanted to buy has now gone

Agree. Completely fed up, only house we like locally is massively overpriced (house exactly the same sold for £100k less earlier this year)

🤷🏼‍♀️

Thanks @Neron. I don’t really know where we go from here.

Just see your other post @Instagrrr It's so frustrating when you spend all that time saving, then when it comes to it, is nothing suitable.

I'm in the SE, things have been extortionate for years. Things are overpriced but no one really wants to lower their prices/accept less so it's a stalemate.

I feel trying to find a house is taking over our lives a bit. We are desperate to move - have to, we can't keep living here. It a infuriating when you have the means (money, AIP etc) to move, just there isn't anywhere to buy. We tried just buying anything to get us out of here and that didn't work. We have 2 requirements, a garage and driveway and that's it, not like we can lower our expectations. Also rightmove obsessed, literally know every house on there. It's sad, I'm sad...

I can remember the pain of this six years ago. I too knew every house and I can remember when one popped up locally. It looked perfect!!! The photo looked a bit ‘odd’ but we looked it up on google maps, lovely corner plot, nothing not to like. We flew down there and stood there really confused, the layout looked totally different. Then the penny dropped, they’d sold off the corner part of the plot and an independent developer had built a house about an inch to the side of the original house 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ They were on site beavering away and me and my partner just stood there like this 😯

I don’t know why we were so angry, but I can remember looking round the house being so pissed off. Eventually we bought a house in a completely different area. Still commutable to work but from the west of the city instead of the east.

Yes, I want to sell a BTL flat in London but not til prices start going up again.

Very annoying indeed.

Absolutely nothing is our area is shifting 🤷‍♀️

The houses are either vastly over priced! Or have been on for months and months With a 5/10k reduction.

Nothing new is coming up just the same houses with reductions.

I feel everyone's frustration. Our house has been up since Feb, firstly with a really unscrupulous agent who way overpriced then refused for weeks to drop the price. We were tied to her for 3 months but after giving her a piece of our minds (politely) she agreed to let us also use another agent & whoever sold would get the commission. So we had 2 agents & cancelled her contract as soon as we could. The next agent was a bit better but we decided to remove from the market to do some work to the property that people seemed very unwilling to do (needed new flooring but people seem to have either no interest, foresight or money to do the work once they buy the house like they would have years ago - everyone seems to want to move into a show house on an established housing estate).

Once the work was done we put it up with a 3rd agent (each time having reduced the price) & had a bit more interest. Had an offer which they increased & we accepted, buyers very keen blah, blah but still had their house to sell. Lo & behold we find out their house is up for sale
with our original unscrupulous agent - when I realised this I knew this sale would never go through. A couple of weeks later, the buyer pulled out as they claimed they were too far away from where they needed to be located. I'd put my money in their agent having something to do with that.

What's worse is we have already moved so currently have 2 mortgages & our old house (which I never want to see again) is way undervalued with brand new bathroom, cloakroom, flooring throughout the whole house & a double extension which makes the rooms & kitchen / family / dining area particularly, much bigger than any other house of the same style on the estate (also a good location). Anxiety levels currently through the roof here!

And the bloody brexit mess which feels like it's never going to reach a conclusion, isn't helping.

How is everyone getting on? DH and I viewed a couple more houses on the weekend, and we really shouldn't have bothered.

One we had made an offer on which was rejected because vendor wanted more (she's received other offers in line with what we made, but house needs a lot of work). EA hounding us over the last few weeks about increasing price etc but we said no everytime. They called again to say would our offer still stand (400k). We said we'll go back and decide from there. Walked in the door and immediately got the spiel about how they know our offer, but if we could only increase it to 415k as that's what the owner really wants...

Second one wanted 430 but was a mess, most of the windows were blown - the panes were completely white. Electrics were dangerous plus needed updating. Commented there and then about the creative pictures/listing and the young EA looked embarrassed. I felt for her but it blooming annoyed me. Now the brexit mess is being delayed until end of Jan plus Xmas so I don't foresee much coming to market either

How's market nearby you now? After GE, Christmas/new year holiday, is it more properties coming to market?

The area I am interested in is just as crap as before, even worse than the same time last year. Houses newly added to right move are either very old, crap which need throw ridiculous money in doing up or massively overpriced.

Lots property used to be STC, reappear again, no price drop, some even increased the asking price. I really can't understand why this happen? Zoopla changed its web, usually you can check from house price to see previous adverts, asking price, when it has been put on the market, now it's totally useless. no such information anymore.

Still rubbish. Same ones sitting there. Some popping on and off. I assume sales are falling through.

reading this I thought I would do a search on rightmove with the same budget and criteria we had when we bought our house in july last year, then we had a choice of about 12 houses to look at, today 3 houses to look at and 2 of these were up for sale when we were looking last year so it is dire at the moment

It’s frustrating that there’s nothing out there
I live in a lovely house but far too big for me now the kids have flown so I finally decided once and for all to put it on the market last week
I’ve waited for Brexit, the GE and Christmas before finally go for it
I don’t mind moving from this area, down sizing, compromising, renovating, going into rental if I manage to get a buyer BUT there is absolutely nothing out there
I’ve been keeping an eye on the market in the areas I’ve decided on for 6 months now which is in a 50 mile radius of where I live and it’s still the same stuff that was on last Autumn with small price reductions
It’s crap

I think more people are staying put and deciding to enhance their homes instead of going through the hassle and expense
There is also a big increase of online estate agents, I strongly feel that estate agents will be non existent in 10 years or earlier due to their extortionate fees and greedy approach

I’m upbeat at the moment but time will tell

Still chuff all on the market here. Overpriced house still on the market, hasn’t reduced in price at all and we are going to have a look at it next week. House with exactly the same floorplan sold 6 months ago for 100k less and a fixer upper with better floorplan and nice side end terrace windows sold 18 months ago for 110k less. It’s been sold as potential for building plot but we’ve checked and no planning permission has been granted for it... the house I’m living in has potential to be a fricken mansion if I wanted it to be 😂 these estate agents are crazily greedy.

^ above house has been looked at by my friend who’s an estate agent who said it’s ridiculous how overpriced it is 🧐

There's more coming to the market in the area I'm looking at but it's all overpriced detached houses that end up sitting there for months. The smaller, nice terraces etc don't seem to be coming up

Hi all, OP here.

We decided to broaden our search and found somewhere on 30th Nov and get the keys this Friday 31st. If we are honest, this purchase may be overpriced buy in comparison to the one that fell apart day before change, it's bigger, better space internally and externally and 30k cheaper. I wouldn't say I love it, but it has so much potential and we could be happy there.

Market definitely still funky, good priced ones still selling, but it's mostly the same houses in rightmove still. Hope things pick up for everyone

How many viewings are those getting who are on the market ?
Have you thought about coming off?

We are looking to downsize and are happy to take on a project. A lot of houses we have looked at have been occupied by older people who have died or gone into a home. The families seem to thin these houses are in move in condition and whilst some of them are very clean and tidy they all have ancient kitchens and bathrooms, some need windows and re-wiring and all need decorating and new floors.In our area the top rate for this sort of house in great condition is £430- 450k but these houses are all on at £420 to £440k and it seems impossible to get the vendors to accept that the house needs a lot of expensive work doing. i did look at a pretty 3 bed cottage in a lovely Somerset town ( we don't live there) it looked so lovely on the estate agents site but the front of the house was a clumsy conversion from shop use, the kitchen was the cheapest you could possibly find and the third bedroom was tiny. They want £425k for this on the basis that it is immaculate but it needs a new kitchen, bathroom and the layout tackling. There are so; many houses languishing on the estate agents lists for getting on for a year that would sell if the vendo;rs were a bit more realistic.

Went on the market Saturday morning, one viewing booked for this week. Feeling really deflated as you build yourself up thinking the phone will be red hot

We are looking to buy, same story as everyone else, houses unrealistically priced. My friends live in the village I’d like to buy in and a friend bought 3 years ago, one of the houses she looked at then is now on again at 60k more????? I cannot believe the greed of people. They have done very little to the house, this is in the north where you can normally buy a 3 bed for 200k but unfortunately we do have many people coming from the south buying as there is a very good train line in the next town to London, which does put the price up. They’re now going up to 230k 240k with old bathrooms, small gardens arggggghhhh !!