Waiting for the housing market to pick up

[ManyMaybes]

Is anybody else finding the housing market they are interested in has slowed significantly?

I’m looking for a largeish family home in London but there is pretty much nothing coming to the market across the city and there hasn’t been much since around October.

I suspect a combination of usual slow winter period and lockdown meaning people aren’t keen on viewings. I doubt I’m the only person who still wants to buy a house though, and demand must be there and building again like it did early last year. Hopefully competition for houses won’t be too fierce when more start coming onto the market!

The market would normally start to pick up about now, so I think whilst there are naturally people nervous about viewings, the homeschooling aspect is a big factor, and a lot of people who might be selling a largeish family home in London are trying to juggle a job with homeschooling kids and do not have time to think about getting a house ready for market.

I'm in the northeast
No one is interested in buying ours and there is nothing new coming on the market
I'm getting impatient now but I know I'll just have to wait

At least a couple of three-four bedroom houses a day seem to come into the market in my postcode (SE23.) Where are you looking?

I think a lot of people will hold off marketing until the spring: the anxious won’t want people viewing their house and others will want to wait until more people are comfortable viewing so as to get the maximum viewings possible and not end up hanging around in the market so long that the property looks like it has something wrong.

I am waiting too and so fed up of it! We are cash buyers and ready to move, but there's nothing. Our purchase fell through at the beginning of December but we carried on with our sale and moved in with family.i cant wait for it to pick up a bit!

Yes us too (rural south west). We spoke to an EA at the weekend at a viewing: we have been looking since September and this is the FIRST house we have been to see!! Anyway, the EA said that whilst they are doing a few valuations they have not been instructed on anything new since before Christmas. So it looks like we'll be waiting a bit longer yet.

The homeschooling point is a good one - I hadn’t thought about that. It must be especially difficult to think about keeping the house in a fit state for viewings!

My search criteria includes the majority of south london as is a 5 mile search radius. There are houses coming onto the market just not very many and nothing particularly nice unfortunately!

Yes all very good points here. Must be more patient!!

What was interesting with the house we viewed at the weekend was that 1) there was literally a queue out the door of people waiting to view (and this is for a £1.5m house) and 2) the vendors had obviously made a deliberate decision to get it on the market early..... less competition perhaps? The house had two big "problems" (one connected with it's location & one internal to the house) and we wondered whether buyers might be tempted to overlook these flaws now because there is so little else on the market?

I definitely think people will be more likely to overlook problems with properties at the moment. I have been tempted to view properties I had previously discounted lately!

If I were selling I would be rushing to get onto the market to take advantage of the situation before more houses come on.

@ManyMaybes me too
We've looked at a few 'wild card' properties
Unfortunately no one feels the same about ours
Really fed up of the whole thing now

I don't think there will be much coming on the market before lockdown is lifted and then there'll be loads. I know people who have got theirs on and are not accepting viewers at the moment.
I also suspect prices will rise slightly again despite the stamp duty holiday ending

We are in SE21 and nothing had come on the market in our search area since November. One of the local agents called me today to see if I wanted to stay on the mailing list and basically told me they have nothing at all....

Sorry I should have said we are looking in SE21

Hopefully it's the start of a crash