The state of the Housing Market

[CoronaIsWatching]

What's it doing near you?

Where I'm looking houses that would have been snapped up within 2 or 3 days 3 months ago, are now staying on Rightmove for a couple of weeks at least. More reduced properties, and more large detached houses coming on the market.

Definitely less houses coming on here in the past few weeks and quite a few seem very overpriced (considerably higher than recently sold prices for similar square footage/ type of house in the same area). Owners have not increased the square footage but have done cosmetic work, eg painted/ installed near kitchen/ bathroom and have put on the market for double the price they bought for 3 or 4 years ago. I doubt they will sell at that price, we'll see. Nice houses in good areas are still selling but quite a few reductions now, those have increased. I'm expecting prices to start to fall next year after the stamp duty holiday ends so better to price realistically now as a seller than risk a property hanging around for months and months.

@planner10- have you found another house now or are you considering the one you were gazumped on?

Buzy sounds awful, sorry you aer stuck there for now! I do think prices will go down a but but the quuestion is, when? Have you tried Eastbourne or the other side of Brighton (Worthing and surrounds) - or is that too far? I'm assuming you aer around Margate. I'm considering selling thten renting as it's near impossible to get your offer accepted in the current market.

I'm in Littlehampton. My work covers most of the southern area of West Sussex. Eastbourne is too far, Worthing would be perfect if I can just find somewhere. I'm investigating SO now. Will still need to rent as I'm close to exchange, but I'm going to have to pick my area very carefully :)

oh no is it so bad now? I thought that stretch was ok (bar Bognor) even though not especially nice. Goring is quite good I've heard, prob more expensive.

@IamwhoIsayIam When I offered i said no further viewing or offers if the vender were to accept. Your EA must have allowed it to happen. Unfortunately EA are to blame for some of it. I have had it happen so many times its infuriating. Fingers crossed mine does all go well. Vendors get too greedy.

@yellowymellowy we found another house that we prefer and 🤞 are quite far down the line, should be exchanging in the next week or two 🤞

Even if we hadn't found elsewhere, we wouldn't have gone back to that house - for me the trust was lost and the house buying process is stressful enough! At the time we did ask them what figure to take it off the market, no more viewings etc - and we met that figure without haggling. Then when the new offer came in a couple of days later, we decided not to up our offer and told them that if it was more money they wanted, they should have told us before. We just decided that we couldn't trust them in the process which was important to us. It was hugely upsetting at the time though. From what I understand it was a couple of grand on a house on for 375k. I know they wanted a specific house and wanted to proceed at a relatively decent pace. Now they're back at square one. Karma!

My EA confirmed that ANY vendor must be told of any subsequent offer that is made. It's standard practice that if a previous viewing person comes up with an offer, the vendor will be informed. We had three offers in one day when selling one house and one of those was from a previous viewing. We didn't sell the house to them, but only because we had a better offer from that day. It's a legal requirement. :)

It's truly awful now. I'm looking at Rustington, and further east.

@planner10- hope all goes smoothly for you now and yes, karma indeed!

I do think some sellers are being unrealistic and best and very greedy at worst. I saw a couple of houses that went up considerably in asking price just after the stamp duty holiday was announced. Neither have sold.

Market slowing here, lots of budget terraces and flats coming on, but very few of the larger detached houses which were on the market earlier in the summer. Prices are ridiculous too, houses marketed (and selling!) for 20-30% more than a year ago. Making it very tricky for us, as sold ours quickly but can't find anything to move onto

One property I know was marketed July 2019, then increased by 4% in Sept and is now on at 12% higher than 15 months ago!! Needless to say, it hasn’t sold. Greedy seller.

I've spoke to both my solicitor and mortgage adviser lots of sales are falling through. Out of houses I viewed initially and put offers in many have gone back on market or taken off completely. Another one which I really wanted just come back on the market. The vendor really greedy. Its advertised 100k more than she bought it 4 years ago. Obviously I didn't offer full price. I dont know why sellers and EA overvalue when its quite simple to Google what price was paid for the property. There are a lot of greedy sellers getting egg on their face at the moment.

What was paid for a property sometimes bears NO relevance to the current price. We bought a rundown cottage, spent a fortune on it, then sold it for 40% more six years later.

@Buzyizzy21 The price paid for a property is relevant especially if no improvements have no been done and it was bought for market value initially. Hence why some houses are still on the market a year later.

Quite a few properties up for sale round here at the moment (SW), not sure if it is the stamp duty holiday OR the timings for school applications! Houses in our area are good for school applications so tend to go quite quickly anyway, will see what happens (mostly larger family properties up for sale, not FTB type homes).

Loads of reductions today looks like the market might be slowing down.

Market is really slowing here now. Many reduced and less coming on.

No massive drop, all houses reduced in my areas (west midlands) are already over priced.
Lots greedy seller/EA try to catch the last straw of STD holiday &booming market.
Waiting the end of October, see what's the situation of November/December.. Next Feb/March the STD will run out of time, if the government don't intend to extend it, we could see a really drop in asking price.

Very little coming on the market at the moment in our area after an influx of properties past few months.

Our house has had regular viewings, positive feedback but no offer after 2 months. We're a small 3 bed plus study and garden in South East so all good on paper but EA says people are finding it much harder to find mortgages and particularly first time buyers need bigger deposits so that's stalling the chains. Certainly we've seen a few houses go under offer then come back onto the market so it does seem that things are often falling through.

Sorry but I wouldn’t consider a 3 bed with study a small property 😊

EA are legally bound to let vendors know of any offers.

@Buzyizzy21 I suppose not! It's always relative though isn't it? We're probably one of the smallest 3 beds on the market locally with one double and two single bedrooms, we've got all the rooms but none of them are large so although price reflects that we're losing out to other slightly more expensive but bigger 3 beds.

A friend of mine had an 800k DEPOSIT and was still turned down for her mortgage!!!!

@tigerbear What is she looking to borrow exactly? if it's a few million, then I can see why the banks might still be cautious

@Smallgoon she was looking to borrow approx £450k. She’s now trying with another lender.