House shortages and greedy sellers

[AprilMae]

Just a rant about the current market really, I feel so disheartened. We’ve just offered £325k on a 3 bed terrace house in the North West and been rejected. Seller says they want £340k as there’s ‘so few homes available’.

So they’re admitting it’s overpriced but the scarcity means they think they can ask it? I’m not even sure a lender would agree to that valuation.

Sold our 2 bed as we need more space but there are very few 3 beds coming on the market, we’re looking in a 15mile radius. I’m really annoyed to have worked hard and scrimped only to be priced out of buying a quote ordinary family home in an inexpensive part of the country.

We offered the asking price of £330K for a 3 bed and it was accepted. The lender then valued the property at £300K so we couldn't proceed with the mortgage application. According to our mortgage broker it was the 5th time it had happened to one of their clients that week alone!

Fortunately, the sellers dropped the price to £300K after a week of deliberating so we can proceed with the purchase.

I feel for you OP. You are correct, the marker is being driven by pure greed and hard working people are being blocked from buying family homes.

It makes no sense to pay above what the property is actually worth and as you say, lenders simply won't approve the mortgage anyway. Those arguing that its fair enough for sellers to inflate the price of their property fail to appreciate that assuming a mortgage will be approved or the buyer can take the hit due to a large deposit/existing equity, when it comes to remortgaging they will be stuck! This isn't a good situation for our economy.

@LetsGoDoDoDo absolutely how I feel about it yes. There do seem to be allot of older buyers around who have cash or a massive deposit so maybe that’s why the lending requirement isn’t a big issue? I’m also worried that if we overpay now we will lose out when selling!

Young families are struggling so much to find decent housing it’s a disgrace. Our household income is above average but I can’t afford a house as nice as my parents did on one min wage income…

Why is it you think they can’t?

I’m also worried that if we overpay now we will lose out when selling!

We have reduced our "budget" because of this. I think we are in for some tricky economic times & building work is so expensive, the days of making a ton of money in a few yrs are over for the majority I think.

With the last house we tried to buy the owner was definitely greedy.
They pulled out at the last minute as felt they were selling the house short then re listed it the same day for 50k more.

Fair enough, 50k is 50k however I'm pleased to say that 3 months later it's still not sold, switched estate agents with a fixed price (not budged on the price) and has now become 'that house' sitting on Rightmove so it's obviously over priced.

All things happen for a reason though and we've just recently had an offer accepted on a house we love. We did have to compromise a bit on area but it is what it is at the moment.

You seem very hard to do. People didn’t ‘get away with’ not paying through some loophole- they purposely bought at a time when stamp duty was suspended. Why didn’t you buy then? The world doesn’t own you anything. If you’d have moved 2 years ago it would have been fine- maybe. Why didn’t you move then, then? The market is crazy and I do sympathise but you seem to think the world is against you when many people are in the same situation. With a growing population I can’t see it becoming less competitive.

It makes no sense to pay above what the property is actually worth and as you say, lenders simply won't approve the mortgage anyway
The house is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it though, surely that is obvious? There is no price other than what you can get someone to buy. I've only bought one property that didn't involve me paying more than the surveyor valuation.

Yes tough isn't it? So few on the market.
We are trying to downsize, sell our large 4 bed and move to a 3 bed different area.
It is hell.

Our house has gone up in value by thirty per cent in four years. But so have all the houses we are looking at to move to. We scrimped and saved to get on the housing ladder and don't see why we are greedy to want to sell for what we can get. A friend who paid under £100,000 twenty years ago has been to sealed bids selling her house and accepted someone offering just under £750,000. It is what it is. I am old enough to remember mortgage rates of 15%, btw.

But if all the prices have gone up by £50k in the last year then they would hand done for you too.

You say that you had to sell the house at the RICS valuation as it was an ‘affordable house’ and as such you couldn’t add the extra £30k onto your house. But if you could have added the extra onto your house would you have done to allow you to buy the property you want?

I am quite offended by the "driving through Skelmersdale comment" we have benefitted from the price increases and just sold our property for 200k and bought our new home for 400k in Skelmersdale - a lovey 4 bed detached new build. It's a nice pet of Skelmersdale and we now have a place in an "outstanding ofsted" primary school for our son. There are nice parts of every town and the crime rates for Skelmersdale are actually lower than the national average so it's a skewed perception.

Anyway I do have sympathy but I think you will need to look at compromising on space or area or just sit and wait and see what happens.

I am in the process of selling my house which has been valued at 70k more than I purchased it for, 3 independent valuations have given the same valuation price.

It's now just gone up for sale for the valuation price, my estate agent advised we should have no trouble selling. I certainly wouldn't be accepting an immediate lower offer just so someone can either get onto the property ladder or upgrade to a larger home. Does that make me greedy? Not in my opinion it doesn't, we are moving to a larger property so if we take a hit then we have to ask our sellers to take a hit and then you are stuck in a change of negotiation.

Seller says they want £340k as there’s ‘so few homes available’. So they’re admitting it’s overpriced but the scarcity means they think they can ask it?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_economy

More constructively: where exactly are you looking, OP? Plenty of us from west lancs who might be able to steer you to a cheap but good area.

Great to see someone speaking up for Skem, and I agree. As I noted upthread, it’s a town that has tens of thousands of people happily living peaceful lives, like many other towns that some people turn their noses up at.

A friend who teaches on Merseyside has just bought a new-ish house in Kirkby. It’s lovely, and the town is nice. However, she still has people sneering and saying, “what do you live there for?” and “don’t you get the wheels nicked from your car every night?”. Ironically, these remarks come from people who probably couldn’t afford her house but think that they are too good to live anywhere but the poshest areas.

Why do they do it? It must be insecurity.

You're just bitter you couldn't sell yours for more... you saved by being on the scheme, and now you're pissed off.

You’re very blinkered, OP.

Let’s say that you but this house at £340k and the market keeps increasing and it’s worth £450k on two years’ time, you’ll be in the same position as the people you’re griping at.

If that happens, I can only assume that you’ll sell your house for under market value.

What about hesketh bank/tarleton op. Get a lot of bank for your buck there. And it’s nice and rural.

I agree with everyone else. It is how a free market works.
I don't know the area, but, if, as you say there are hardly any 3 bed houses for sale in the area, then it is more than likely the house will sell for the £340, so that is what it is worth.
I do feel sorry for ftbs seeing prices move out of their reach as they are trying to save whilst paying rent, but less so for people with £325k to spend who already have a house.
Virtually everyone has to compromise on what they would like when buying a house. It doesn't matter what stage you are at, you can always see places just out of your reach.
Selling your property for the most you can get for it isn't greedy, it is sensible. Presumably the vendors will be buying something else, which will also have increased in price.

@sillytops I actually don’t know the traditional parts of Skelmersdale was thinking of the council estates. All the roads go through there. I’ll have to have another look!

I just looked on Rightmove. It is awash with three bed houses in West Lancs for £325k or less. I assume that along with Skem you must have discounted Haydock, the suburbs of Wigan, Westhoughton, Leyland and the northern edge of Merseyside. You can even get a new build three bed in Standish (posh Wigan, for anyone not in the Mumsnet west Lancs massive) for £315k. What’s wrong with any of those? Or is it a Victorian terrace on one of the best streets in Ormskirk or nothing?

@AprilMae not helping your case there OP, what is wrong with a council estate?

DH and I have been considering buying further up into Northumberland on the coast. The prices are madness. The last 4 we looked at were being sold by people from somewhere else in the country who have them as holiday lets. The estate agents said they are all difficult to contact, don't come up here for months at a time and, although they want to sell, don't make it straightforward. They expect to make huge profits. One had owned it for 15 months and had an asking price +80% on what they paid (no work done )and it was 'offers over', and expected £35,000 on top of the asking price.
We also asked to see a house that had gone on the market that day that needed a lot of work. The vendor had died. The agent could do a viewing in 3 weeks time because they had over 160 viewings already, from developers and people wanting to buy it and do it up as a holiday let. We said we wouldn't bother and are staying put.
One bedroomed cottages in nice coastal towns are going for offers over 365,000. The estate agent told us she has a buyer from down south who is looking for her 10th but to let cottage in a particular village- on the coast with a castle.
Local people are really struggling to buy.
We are looking at 4-5 bedroomed houses, old ones in stone with a large garden- of which there are few and they are selling for 700,000- 1000,000+. Madness.We've decided to stop looking.

@Nutellaonall yes we have a few viewings lined up HB/ T for the coming week 🙂 more built up than we wanted initially but there are more houses on the market in our price range

@LuluBlakey1 that would make me so angry! Are there no restrictions on people buying for holiday let’s?

I'm trying to sell a 5 bed 3 rec 1 study 3 bathroom huge enclosed walled garden and really hoping for 250K. We're 7 mins from the beaches too. But I live in NI! It is what it is! My problem is that I want to downsize to a bungalow and the price for one of those scarce things is about the same as my house 😭