Is there An Increase of Houses Being Taken Off the Market?

[SilverLiningSearching]

I was house hunting pre-Covid and during lockdown have been compiling a short list of properties to view.
Three of these properties have been taken off the market in the past two weeks, they are not showing as Sold STC on Rightmove, and had their For Sale signs taken down.
This only leaves me with one left to view.
It seems a high ratio, perhaps they were getting very low offers and have decided to wait? They were all were put on the market pre- Covid.

Has anyone else experienced this?

I think that’s likely agents are saying they have had a flurry of low ball offers trying to take advantage of Covid but sellers are holding tight and refusing them, so I’d imagine they would take the properties off the markets.

Only people who really need to sell will do so now. So others, if they aren’t getting the price they want they will just de list.

Maybe they have decided against moving due to uncertainties.

Yes @Bluntness100, that makes sense, one of them did have a sale fall through before, so might not want the hassle.
One of them is empty and no chain, it also needs a ton of work doing, would have thought they would be happy to get rid.

Some might not be able to afford to move now?

Some agents aren't using Rightmove and are just using their own website to advertise properties to save money as it's thousands per month to keep the properties on Rightmove

Probably due to changes in circumstances that mean they can’t afford to move, redundancy, business folding or losing money, furlough or even just uncertainty making staying where they are seem like the sensible thing to do.

Another factor may just be the number of mortgage products that have been removed from the market recently.

Yes @Itsmemaggie I’m increasingly of the opinion that I should put buying on the back burner, too much uncertainty in the market right now.

A few I was looking at have disappeared too.
We're stuck as we've been messed about for months with our sale of my DP's property. Lockdown was the last thing we needed as we've been paying for 2 houses now for months - one of which is empty.
If we didn't need to sell it, we'd take it off as it's nothing but trouble. Paying 2 mortgages is crippling us though.

Been looking to move for months but struggling to find the type of property we want. Things are moving fast too and houses we like are sold subject to contract within a couple of days of being listed.

it's thousands per month to keep the properties on Rightmove

It’s about 2k a year for a single branch. So an agency pays on average 160 quid a month per branch to put all its properties on right move.

@longtimecomin

Some agents aren't using Rightmove and are just using their own website to advertise properties to save money as it's thousands per month to keep the properties on Rightmove

As a vendor i Wouldn’t be happy if my estate agent did that. Being on RightMove was part of the deal I signed up to.

Does anyone know how long a property had to be off Eg Rightmove before it can be relisted as new to market? I’m just interested! I’ve seen houses come on and off round where we live (want to move so keep an eye on things)

Our EA is actually having trouble coping with this week's upsurge in enquiries. They are struggling to accommodate viewing requests to the extent that they are already fully booked for next week.

So despite all of those insisting the outlook is doom and gloom, there are clearly lots of people out there who want to get moving.

It may be that it's under offer under exclusivity - ie the buyer demand it be taken off the market to prevent gazumping. I did this when i bought my property and would also recommend doing this if you are serious about a purchase.

I never thought of that @Bells3032, the houses are local though, so I guess I will find out what the story is on the grapevine sooner or later.

Feelinghistoric it's around 12 weeks I think. It's been mentioned on previous threads.

I've still got a notification thread set up from when we last moved and there have been a number of new instructions in the last couple of weeks after no movement at all since the end of March.