Anyone else trying to sell their house?

[Permanentlyfrazzled]

How many viewings are you getting?

Fourth time on the market in 9 months due to multiple chains falling through and feeling very disheartened. This time we've gone on at a 50K reduction from our previous asking price (which we achieved multiple times) but we recognise that the market has changed.

Despite a massive reduction viewings seem really slow. We've had 4 viewings in just under four weeks and one second viewing, but no offers.

How is everyone else getting on? Is it just the market at the moment? I'm trying to tell myself that it's the mortgage rate rises and the summer holidays.

We can't afford to reduce again as we won't be able to buy. House prices in our area aren't coming down as quickly as we've reduced.

We are in Surrey. Thank you!

We're 9 weeks now 😢 We're trying to relocate or i think I would have gave up by now. The longer it goes on the more I wonder if We're doing the right thing. Im starting over think everything. Our schools go back next week so hoping getting back into a routine will help my mood.

@Noodles It is them, they are serious but the price the offered was, frankly, insulting!
Bloody speedbumps indeed. If it makes you feel better, I had so many different things 'wrong' with my house according to different people.
What is one person's rubbish is another's person's treasure, however.
Had a few people not keen on the small driveway, the potential buyers love our pretty front garden!!

Market is sh*t though, people can complain about inept EAs, but NOTHING is selling fast at the moment, at least according to rightmove...

@citygirl1234567 3 weeks is nothing, give it more time!!

@noodles20 oh that’s disheartening. We’ve had 3-4 cancellations for viewings after drive-bys and even on the day which is bloody annoying after I’ve wasted 6 hours cleaning and polishing and tidying every surface.
Spoke to our EA on Friday and have decided to give the house (and ourselves) a ‘rest’ until mid-September. Then go back on with a £50k price reduction.
Relieved to pause for a few weeks but a bit sad that back in June we got the asking price from a cash buyer with no chain…
nothing is moving though, the market is stagnant. EA says September will be better. Can you give your house and yourself a few weeks off?
honestly I am constantly on edge at the moment and it’s taken over my life. Got a viewing tomorrow so that’s another day wiped out on my earnings as I work for myself.

We are looking to buy and I think the issue is lack of what we need (need a 4 or 5 bed but everything for sale is either 2 or 3 bed of jumps in price 5x) so we are looking at houses that don't quite fit but with the work that needs doing it would be too expensive.

Plus some houses just aren't it:

Like one had a kitchen where I own shoe boxes bigger, Im not kidding when I say its a cupboard with a small cooker and sink in no fridge or anything. It also stunk of damp even though we couldn't 'see' the damp.

Another one had a tiny kitchen, no room for any appliances not even a fridge again and was surprisingly really loud (you could hear EVERY car drive passed as if they where in the room).

One the owner has lived their 40 years smoking 60 a day, they whole place needed gutting from nicotine.

The one we liked most the owner has ripped all the walls out to make the downstairs completely open plan. We would need to put the walls back to be practical but at the cost they are asking (way above value probably to compensate for the work they have done which we need to undo) we couldn't afford it.

Like I'm not even fussed with kitchens really. A small galley kitchen will more than do (hate the big open kitchen diners) but we do need the basics of a fridge/freezer (obviously) + under counter space for a washer, dryer and preferably a dishwasher if possible.

The thing that keeps coming up with us is they like the house but the rooms are too small. Obviously there is nothing we can do about that. The 3rd bedroom is a box room and we did think about putting an extension on a couple of years ago. We've always managed though. I would love to know where all these house are round here with the massive rooms haha older properties do have bigger rooms but the downstairs are smaller. The main thing i thought would put people off is the boiler is old. Nobody has mentioned it though. We have replaced windows, doors, kitchen, bathroom, drive is mono blocked. Apart from the hall carpet needing replacing (its not even too bad) you could move right in. I would post a link but someone else done it on another post and her lovely house was ripped apart. I don't need that just now haha

That is so annoying! The constant tidying and cleaning is bad enough without people cancelling. Can you afford to move with that kind of reduction? We had an offer accepted on a house and the sellers are waiting for us. If we took ours off we run a bigger risk of them pulling out. Did the EA say why September would be better? I feel the longer it goes on the worse the market could get. If we drop the price anymore we would have to try and renegotiate our offer on the other place or we wouldn't be able to afford it.

@noodles20 We get that a lot too, 'box room is too small'! Thing is, it says dimensions clearly on our advert. I am not sure why it's surprising. It's also one of the reasons we want to move out!
Our house is very standard 3 bed semi. They all have box rooms like this.
I wonder what sort of houses they end up buying sometimes!

I wouldn't mind speed bumps near my house, all that means people can't speed in their cars! It would probably make me feel safer as a person with 2 young DC.

Just offered full asking price in cash
agent came back and said there is also a lower offer with their house under offer

so best and final within 48 hours

Grrrrr

Do you think that they are using "the room is too small" as a kop out? As you say, it shouldn't be a surprise unless the rooms aren't square and the measurements go into a bay or some other alcove.

Perhaps they just don't like the home or the price and are just too scared (or English!) to say so.

Hi we’ve had to rethink our plans with the price drop but we could still make it work. Sort of hoping houses we are interested in will drop prices too.
EA hasn’t taken us off the market, they’re just stopping marketing our house on right move etc for a few weeks. They say mid September when schools are back is a key time that people who didn’t find a place in spring/summer start looking again. The plan is the price drop will put us back on top of the list I suppose. Also it puts us into a new price bracket on search which gets us 33% more views — or so they tell us. 🤔

I’ve got a standard 3 bed 1930s semi with a box room, we had viewers offer then do a second viewing. Finally they told agent that they consider this a 2 bed house so they withdrew their offer.

It might me being hugely cynical, but I think the concept of 'feedback' after viewings is completely overrated.

There's almost never a situation where you can do anything about the reasons why someone says they weren't interested, and half the time you're not getting the real reason anyway, just the obvious answer to get the estate agent of the phone.

If someone doesn't want to buy my house I really don't give a monkeys why. I'm more than aware of its downsides.

There's really only one variable that has any significant effect when selling.

Do people not check! We have photos of every room and one of those video things you can view a 360° of each room also! Ours is a standard semi too just over 20 years old I think. Its the way their built these days. The new builds near here are over 100k more and still small rooms by the look of them.

The speed bumps aren't even on our street. There is a long hill with around 10 streets off it on both sides. The bumps are on the hill. The only time they annoy me is if I drive down the hill, realise I've forgotten something and have to drive back up lol if I liked a place I really wouldn't let that put me off 🙄

We are also relocating. Might rent this one and rent where we are.

I would do but we don't need to sell, have three kids who are home ed, eldest is autistic. So pretty tricky to hold viewings scattered through week, etc.

@noodles20 As someone else said above, I think a lot of the 'feedback' is an excuse, when someone is just not 'feeling' it.
When we viewed this house, it was in the state of utter disrepair. But we liked the room setup / bright airy feeling well enough.

We had a couple of people asking where the garage was, when it's clearly been converted into a utility room some 40 years ago! I genuinely think some people don't read the listings properly.

@citygirl1234567 That sounds very annoying indeed. I'm finding it difficult enough with the 2 at home!

The first time we sold (last year), the feedback was.. it's too open plan (yup, it's on the floor plan and on photos).
Since then we made utility and separate playroom back (because it was noisy and kids are getting older).
Feedback this time was, I kid you not... wished it was all open plan/downstairs is small. Wish peoplelooked at floorplans before coming.
I keep looking at rightmove and first look at floorplan. Then I go to google maps, then check ou planning history to see if already extended, etcetc. This whittled my choice so far to two.
Where we are houses are expensive (Surrey), but yes, if you want same house not next to noisy road, you will pay 200k extra 🙄

Hi everyone. No further viewings booked for this week, and neither offers from non-proceedable buyer have become proceedable yet either. It's been five weeks now since we put it back on.

We are probably going to do as @Jacquel666 is, take the house off and relist mid-September with a new agent.

The house looks like it's been on January on it's current listing anyway (it hasn't, it's sold twice but the quirk of Rightmove is that it it has to be off the market for at least 14 weeks before it shows a new listing). So that's probably really not helping us.

Going on with agent will make it appear as a fresh listing, hopefully at a busier time in September when people start looking again.

So disheartened...we definitely aren't going to move in time for our son's operation.

How's everyone else getting on?

The first time I was asked for feedback I didn't know that was a thing and paniced, think I just said 'the owners are lovely' (which they where). I didn't feel I could say the kitchen is microscopic, its way overpriced and stinks of damp on the ground floor.

I now dodge the 'feedback' phone calls because honestly I don't want to slag someone house off just because its not suitable for us. They live there so they are clearly going to be aware of the size of their kitchen or the smell of damp or that they are a smoker etc... they don't need me to say it.

We had someone who wanted to offer 25k under asking price because we needed a new shed! I suggested she paid the full asking price, and we would buy her a shed for £800.

Idk, admittedly the rooms are a bit small and we could have done with more space when the kids were younger. The EA has done all our viewings and we usually go out when they're here so no need for them to feel awkward.

We thought of doing this when we originally decided to relocate. Unfortunately where we're going a lot of properties have been turned into airbnb so long term rentals are few and far between.

When we bought this place the family had just had their first child. They were packed in like sardines! We had to take down additional cupboards they had put up in the master and second bedroom. It never bother us. We didn't have children at the time though.

Yep that's us! 👋🏼

Been on the market since Easter

SE London zone 5

Have now accepted an offer which is 96% of current asking price which is pretty decent...we got fed up with viewings and receiving offers of 10-11% under asking, mainly cash buyers looking for investment/buy to let...yes they are still around!

So overall, compared with our original asking price, we've taken a 10% price
reduction

Compared with our buyer 'power' back at Easter it's much diminished due to rising interest rates and having to reduce our price

This is definitely going to impact our onward purchase

We're looking at 3 bed semis and will have no shame in starting offers at 10% under asking and see what happens especially those that have been on for ages

Our buyer is in a chain...so anything can happen of that I'm certain!

Such a crap time to be buying/selling but it's typical for us, shit timing but what can you do?!