Houses selling quicker than we can view them

[Wigowoman]

Anyone else noticed this??
For instance a house comes on the market in the morning, we book to view it after work and before we can get there a offer has been accepted!!
Driving me mad
Going to loose our buyer at this rate

Yup. I feel your pain. I have been in this situation since March 2021. Ended up selling and now living with parents.

Yes unfortunately, we gave up in the end, hoping the madness will calm eventually!

The closest we got was with a house our estate agent showed us before it went on Rightmove - your estate agent should be showing you any potential houses as soon as they get told about them, are they doing that?

Yes I think we’ll end up giving up too! It’s soul destroying! We desperately need to upsize. Wishing we did it last year now

Yes our estate agents have been great and ringing us as soon as properties come to market. We are have offered full asking twice now and been outbid twice!
Not sure whether to go into rented for a while.

Sadly, it wasn't better last year. We have been looking since before COVID (have now exchanged and completing in a few weeks), and about half the properties we called about in summer 2020 and all of 2021 were sold before we made it to our viewing. Quite a few of them seemed to go under offer before the first day of viewings, so either someone got in early or made an offer sight unseen. We never offered even close to asking price (all significantly over) and were outbid even being chain free/in a very good position. I would look for properties that you can offer more on honestly (i.e. are lower priced to start). We were looking in the £600-800K range and easily offering £30-80K over asking and even being chain free, still being outbid.

If you dont have to move sit tight it’s crazy, where it will end I have no idea, the same with house extensions, finding a builder able to give a price and do anything is very hard.

It will get back to normal eventually, probably not this year.

@mindutopia congrats on making it this far!!!
I’m worried about offering over - will this not leave us in negative equity further down the line?

Same situation here, we’ve just been outbid again even though we offered 15K over asking and first time buyers. I called about another house this morning that only came up yesterday and they said the vendor accepted an offer same morning it came up

@PurpleIsTheColour glad we’re not the only ones! Wow £15k over - are you going to offer more or is that it?
Where in the country are you?

[quote Wigowoman]@mindutopia congrats on making it this far!!!
I’m worried about offering over - will this not leave us in negative equity further down the line?[/quote]
Only if the house isn't actually worth what you buy it for and then goes down in value

But assuming u get a valuation for mortgage that should reassure u

Remember the price that a house is for sale is only the estate agent opinion. Have a look at Zoopla.

We've had this too.

Although we've been looking since April 2021, and finally had an offer accepted before Christmas. We lost out on two where we offered our maximum, which was the asking price, but people offered massively more than asking.

We've found a lovely one that had everything on our "must have" list, previous sale had fallen through but it's empty and subject to probate. The lady selling it wanted exactly the asking price as that's what they'd put on the the probate forms! It was very refreshing actually.

But it does seem to be calming down a bit now here - North Hampshire.

We’re supposed to be viewing one this afternoon but I’m not holding my breath - we wanted to view yesterday but they already had 5 viewings booked!!
We are in the Midlands. Our house sold in a matter of hours and I’m still getting phone calls with people pleading to view it.

We were going to view a house I really liked this week but already offers are 40k over asking price and it's not even gone to best and final yet! So we dropped out without even viewing it :(

£100k over asking for last 3 on our road. But they had a bumpy journey though with 1 being relisted 6 weeks after sealed bids but selling again in a day.

Wow that’s ridiculous! That’s a lot more than here but obviously I’m guessing you are all looking in higher priced areas. I’m loosing hope to be honest!

@Wigowoman
We gave our offer on Monday and I specifically asked them if they think the vendor will go to final and highest as we’ll are willing to offer more-EA confirmed that’s the plan. Well, we got an email today saying vendor has accepted another offer and we’ve lost the house.
It’s just so tricky knowing how much to offer and how much the house is actually worth. We are FTB so if we bid too high and the valuation is around the asking price the difference will have to be covered by us so we don’t want to risk not being able to afford the house (we only have 10% deposit).
We are Cambridgeshire so very competitive

@PurpleIsTheColour sorry to hear this. We had our dream house last year in the pipeline - offer accepted. Old couple who didn’t want to ‘mess about’ hated viewings and didn’t want anyone else viewing it. Long story short they got spooked because they got outbid (as we all have) on a bungalow and then couldn’t find anywhere else/kept being beaten to offer so they decided not to sell ☹️

Yes we sold our house before it hit Rightmove. That fell through and we sold again the day it was listed (3 viewings). We are looking in East Midlands and even getting the chance to view and offer seems like a win at the moment. Everything we see is flying off and going for much more than asking (and with cash/ftb). We are resigned to either renting or moving in with family to break the chain but it's not ideal.

I had 3 offers, over asking, before it had even been viewed. Its insane!

to be honest, depending on area, you need to be offering over asking to stand a chance.

We've got the opposite problem here in Downham Market, Norfolk. Houses are taking months to sell. However, the rental market is very hot.
Not that is of any help to you unless you are able to look at different areas of the country.

Hopefully, the market in your area will slow down in the next six months. Good luck with the house hunting.

@Barnabyted, I think we are all going to move to Downham Market, Norfolk now :-)

[quote areyouhavingagiraffe]@Barnabyted, I think we are all going to move to Downham Market, Norfolk now :-)[/quote]
Yes, I think you've just driven prices up posting that 😂

....heads off to search Downham Market on Rightmove...!

We are first time buyers too, been stung with a down valuation, just outbid on another and didn't even bother offering on some that went way over. I think we are also going to give up for now. It's just too stressful and disappointing.

Depends where, took me 8 months to find a buyer (who offered the full price)

Rentals are flying out just as fast - I’ve booked 25 viewings in the last 3 weeks and had 21 one of them cancelled a few hours before I’ve never known anything like it.

@TheHoptimist

£100k over asking for last 3 on our road. But they had a bumpy journey though with 1 being relisted 6 weeks after sealed bids but selling again in a day.

Out of curiosity are these houses particularly unique or special or just nice but basically ordinary family homes?