What is the property market like where you live? It's dead here

[OnedayIlflyaway]

Haven't had any viewings for a month. Joint agents, very competitively priced. Have a potential buyer, but they need to sell their own house in North London; they've been on the market for 6 weeks. Agents tell me the market is very strange at the moment, mortgage increases are making potential buyers very nervous. I'm in south Hertfordshire.

Who can afford to buy ALL these homes?

They won't ALL be bought, obviously, but the group of people with household income £200k+, whilst not huge, is far from tiny.

You also tend to find, generally speaking, that those at the more expensive end of the market are less leveraged, less likely to have a mortgage, and can more easily ride out a potentially precarious market.

Whereas, those at the comparatively lower/middle part of the market might find themselves more exposed to increases in borrowing costs.

Of course there are a few people, but they are the top of the tree. There just aren't enough people like them to buy (and maintain) all these houses.

Well, not a wanker, but perhaps poorly informed. The median UK full time salary last year was around 32K. There are not many people earning 60K+ and even fewer where both earn 60K+. And if they earn £120K - can they get a 500K mortgage? Even then £500K won't touch half of the expensive large houses we're talking about.

Scottish Highlands.

Fast and hot.

1%, 0.5%? It's tiny.

Of course I could be wrong and we'll see lots of 600K+ transactions completing in the land registry data, and very few of those expensive houses will remain unsold.

1%, 0.5%? It's tiny

Depends where you are in the country perhaps. Varies quite a bit I should think.

Do you really think that? Surely not. I'll tell you what. Find me a town - any town - the richest town in the UK - where more than 1% earn 200K and I'll donate a fiver to a charity of your choice.

Have we got a site with detailed stats on stuff like this? Would be really interesting to see if you've got a link?

Nice try. I'm not the one who has to provide the evidence for this bet. But I'll be nice - try the ONS Average Salary statistics.

Were selling my late in-laws house and we've had 2 viewings, the second one said her car wouldn't fit in the hats and that was that.
It's in a retirement town so hopefully the warmer weather will encourage people to move to the area.

Watch that Moving Home with Charlie episode that deals with people who have to sell.

Of course, if your attention span is too small, like some others, to cut thru Charlie's waffle then don't bother!

Very London centric comment. There are very few couples earning 100K plus anywhere other than in London and even in London it is small in percentage terms. Obviously, management consultants will tend to hang out with other management consultants rather than cleaners or people who work in retail or care.

It depends on the group of people.
Some more expensive properties will be opened by older people who bought them relatively cheaply decades ago and have paid off their mortgages.
If you are referring to people taking out mortgages to buy very expensive property, particularly say 800k/ 1 million plus in London, those people are often in a great amount of debt and very reliant on their own going high earning employment. Once you are on the hamster wheel of huge expenses, you need to keep running. If even one of the couple lose their job and can't find another in a recession plus rising interest rates and everything else, they could absolutely be in lots of trouble.

I think her prices are accurate - certainly North Dulwich (SE zone 2) has plenty of 2 bed flats on at around £800k which were well under £500k 10 years ago, and has ex-council houses for sale for £950-1.2m.

BUT this time last year there were bidding wars for all of these properties, all going to best offers within a week of listing. Now, they sit on the market for 3-4 months and get reduced. Or are withdrawn then reappear months later at a lower price. So I would describe that as pretty dead, even though the prices are still ridiculous compared to somewhere like, I dunno, Lincolnshire.

We are in the SW. house has only been on 3 weeks, not one viewing, have checked with multiple agents and online comparisons beforehand so priced accordingly. I wasn’t expecting to have sold yet but would have thought a viewing or two would have happened….

@Dmblover Same here. Also SW. 4 weeks and no viewings. Quite scary.

Council estate on outskirts of Sheffield, 15 houses came on sale since April, all but one sstc. I keep my eye on the local housing market & while prices are down maybe 10% the houses are selling, they make good starter homes for first time buyers.

@elodiedie yep… we have done so
much work to the house as well, the kitchen could do with updating and the conservatory is old, but every wall has been plastered, new bathroom, new flooring, new boiler and rads etc, it’s on £15k less than some others on the same road as they sold a couple of months ago and had the interest rates increase since… but nada….

We're near Stockport. Market is pretty dead here. Our estate agent says nothing is moving, especially in the higher price bracket. Ours is a larger house, we've been trying to sell and downsize since last November. Sold once - they pulled out after 2 months. Really need to move this year - might have to have a look at that YT video!

As I’ve said look to my comments on here since 2020 warning that this would be coming. Any debate was to the contrary of house price ramping was shot down.

Lots of estate agents and vested interests on here talking their books and talking codswallop for those looking for genuine advice.

£100k UK average incomes, sales still flying in my area etc etc….

Market value of transactions are 54% down when compared to the 5 month prior.

https://thenegotiator.co.uk/completions-tumble-by-54-in-first-six-months-of-2023/

With transactions falling off a cliff, of course the statistics will be skewed to the upper end until the market rates have a chance to embed.

This is just the start of the oil tanker changing course.

NW seaside town. In a 5 mile radius, there is almost 800 houses (not including flats) under £200,000. It's dead. Every day more go up and more reduce.

We are going to view a house tomorrow that's been on with 3 different agents since Oct last year and we aren't going to offer much more than we know they paid for it.

One "trick" may help but is often imponderable: Search your area on RM, include SSTC and Under Offer, sort by newest listings, see what properties have most recently been marked SSTC or Under Offer and what prices and condition they were in. Perhaps it may give an insight into which properties are moving and why.

Yeah, done all that… like I said ours is newly renovated so can’t do much about that, the ones on the same street that sold earlier in the year were fairly similar, the only difference that they listed back in feb time and for £15k more. Would be easier if we had some viewings as then we would have feedback to go on. Agent said it’s priced correctly and it’s just a waiting game, I’m just worried by all the news of crashes etc

With respect, the Agent is a bit of a dick. If it were priced correctly then you'd have loads of viewings.

Otherwise, the Agent has made such a bodge of the description, photos and plan, that it is actually turning off prospective buyers.

Perhaps rethink your Agent.

My flat sale fell through, buyer got cold feet. Shame, as it's a lovely wee flat & very well-priced. We'd sorted all the issues too. Not sure the buyer appreciated that but ho hum, it's a terrible system.