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.

The less houses on the market the more it is a sellers market. Prices will not fall if only few houses of good standard are coming on. The things that will stay on the market are those that are overpriced or simply unattractive for other reasons. Fewer houses of good quality favours sellers not buyers.

[quote Sitdowncupoftea]@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.[/quote]
@Sitdowncupoftea

I did the same. A condition of our offer was to take it off the market and cancel all future viewings, which they did. Didn't stop some CF door stopping them and offering 50k more! EA wasn't even involved and were as bemused by it as we were, it was just presented to them as a done deal.

It's crazy in Oxford. It's normally competitive/pricey but this is something else. Places selling in days, hugely inflated prices, and the more reasonably priced properties are going well over asking. In June we offered asking price and got gazumped by 50k! Last week we found another house we loved, but it went for 25k over asking. We are first time buyers and desperate to buy our first home but can't compete in this market - we may have to sit tight for now.

@IamwhoIsayIam The EA has no control if vendor is doing private viewings. Offering 50k higher should show warning bells though.

@dinkydino123 come and buy ours in Didcot. 10 min walk from the station and 15 min train into Oxford or Reading

If I exclude the pile of HMO properties being sold in my area which are rotting away at ridiculous prices, most houses are still being sold quickly here, though auction properties are going for little-if-any more over the guide price which is unusual here.

One property my spouse and I looked at (chose not to move forward with) ended up gone within a week later. Another did look like it was lingering on the market, but the EA said the sellers are just being hard to get hold of so viewings haven't happened much (not sure if I should call again about that one or should just take that as a warning).

@dinkydino123-it amazes me that people continue to outbid each other so much considering the economic outlook. Hopefully this will end up being a blessing in disguise for you as long as you have a good deposit.

I was surprised to see one of the houses I thought was very overpriced last week marked as SSTC yesterday but today the SSTC has disappeared. It is being marketed only 5-10% lower than houses in the same area that are nearly 1000 square feet larger just because of a beautiful new kitchen, etc.

yellow how do you mean it may turn out a blessing in disguise? I@m also tryng to buy but places are overpriced due to bidding wars. Do you mean it's best not to compete now and wait till prices drop? But when would that be?

@CatAndHisKit- I meant that prices seem likely to drop at some point next year and so it seems foolish to get into bidding wars unless there are pressing reasons for a move right now. Obviously there may be some FTB and others who are concerned they may not be able to raise a mortgage if the wait as banks have been tightening up their lending criteria.

yellow I'm thinking of waiting (and renting) too but I worry that if prices drop significantly, there will be very few houses o the market - atm everyone who can sell, is selling.

Also do you think early next year or well into it? I would not want to rent for many months. Just though maybe worth waiting till March, but renting/moving twice is a pain too.

@CatAndHisKit- I don't think anyone can answer that question accurately. I'm sure you are right that the stock of possible houses will fall, it already has even now but there will always been some and you could be in a good position if renting rather than selling.

@yellowymellowy Apparently rental properties are scarce at present. I'm not sure the area your in but a lot of people are selling to rent as a crash is expected. The crash may or may not come.

yes it seems to be hte case of deciding between paying over the odds now (or compromising signinficantly on house size) or the nuisance of renting (after not having rented for 8yrs and even that was short term, in my case!)

@Sitdowncupoftea- I didn't know that there was an increase in renting in some areas to wait and see what happened to the market. Not sure about here. You are right there may be no 'crash'. I think it's very likely there will be some kind of fall though the government/ BOE will try to mitigate.

How is market near you now?

Don't know the situation this year whether it would be very similar to last year?

If Furlough has been extended to another 3 to 6 months (highly possibly), Stamp duty holiday has been extended another 6 months as well to the end of September, will this make another mini boom like last summer?

I just checked rightmove on daily basis, still found lots houses went into STC quickly in January, are those buyers all confident with beating stamp duty deadline? Or just don't care, they can afford to pay anyway.

Due to lack of supply of houses on the market, I can't see any drop in foreseeable future? Interest rate is still very low. Furlough covered unemployed rate, bank still give mortgage holiday to prevent reprocessed house coming to the market. .Low supply & high demand means it will still be sales market in 2021.

We broke our chain and moved into rented. Had an offer accepted on our purchase in November, 7% under asking probably because we could meet the stamp duty holiday deadline.
I think we have paid top of the market but it is a lovely house. I imagine prices will fall this year but so far supply has been dire - not one house that would meet our criteria has come on the market in the past few months.

A lot of the houses that didn't sell in autumn have been taken off the market - perhaps because they would not be able to meet the stamp duty holiday deadline.

In a way I wish we could hold out and see if we can get more for our money in a year but the cost of the rent will make a dent in our "savings" and we will probably end up paying another £15k in SDLT and there is no guarantee that we would be able to get anything as nice so we are going to suck up the fact we have probably overpaid - we plan to stay for the next 10-15yrs so it will make little difference in the grand scheme of things.