What to do after 10 weeks on the market?

[windandrain]

Feeling very depressed about trying to sell and wondered if anyone here had some thoughts?

House went on the market in late September. We wanted to go on earlier in the year after finishing some work off but lockdown stopped us. Then summer holidays and having all three DCs at home delayed us further. We want to move as two DCs started a new school this term and it's a half hour car journey away.

In the 10 weeks we've been up for sale, we've had a handful of viewings. One was a cash buyer (and didn't like the road 🙄). The rest were all speculative and didn't even have their houses on the market. So no offers. Positive feedback from the two who actually bothered to comment.

It's so frustrating. Agent says we're on at the right price. A house exactly the same as ours sold with a different agent after 6 weeks, having gone on at the same time as us. Obviously I don't know what offer they have accepted but it was on at the same price.

The agent was convinced there would be another post-lockdown boom, but we've only got one viewing lined up for the weekend.

What should we do? Unless we get an offer soon, we'll miss the stamp duty deadline. That's not a game changer for us, as we want to move regardless, but I imagine the market will drop further the nearer we get to March. So if we leave it on the market, people might assume there's something wrong with it. But if we take it off the market, it's predicted it will go completely dead after the stamp duty deadline, so when on earth will it be worth going back on again?

I'm not sure what I'm asking here as no-one has a crystal ball. I'm so fed up. I'm also facing an entire afternoon and evening of tidying and cleaning for just one viewing...why is my family so messy?!

Keep it on the market - you may or may not get an offer eventually, but if you take it down then you definitely won't!

Drop the price a little. I know the agent said you're on at the right price, but:

a) A lower price will appeal to more people

b) The market changes all the time (we had a very good idea what ours was worth, because an identical house down the road sold quickly just before we went on the market; yet it took us 10 months to sell and we eventually had to accept 10% less than they did)

c) Estate agents don't necessarily understand the market as well as they should! In the area we're looking to buy, there are 2 particular estate agents who massively overvalue their houses compared to everyone else - but because there's two of them at it, they can claim their properties are priced correctly compared to the market! (Conveniently overlooking the fact that none of them sell until they've dropped to a more realistic price)

When does your contract expire? Is it at 12 weeks? Can you get in some other estate agents to quote and suggest improvements, including the one that handled the identical house?

Drop the price.

@windandrain our first agent told us we were on at the right price, 6 months later and 3 price reductions later (different agent too) we accepted an offer £50k under the original asking price. Agents will tell you it's not the price because they make more money the more you sell it for.

Just post a link and we will tell you

@CoronaIsWatching

Just post a link and we will tell you

This... but likelihood is that you'll have to drop price.

We went on mid September at price estate agent recommended - he said he expected to get £625k. We got enough viewings but the only person interested hadn't even put there's on the market. EA said to reduce price but it was basically to change to same price but in guide price format. That seemed pointless to me so I asked him to lower it another price bracket and we sold in a week then.

Only thing is we may not have got the maximum price versus waiting it out. We got £590k and possibly if we'ld waited we might have got £610k or so but it felt like playing with fire as there were reductions going on and market could turn at any point. Its actually still fine there but accepting offer has meant we are going through forms, survey etc and that's useful anyway.

So I would reduce price and see what happens.

Drop the price now on the condition that only proceedable viewers come to viewings. I think prices will drop even further if you wait