So frustrated with the market

[Omgwtafisthat]

Stuff still being priced as if it’s 2022! Stuff needing so much work, but work is so so expensive.

we’ve been under offer for ages but just can’t find anything! Sorry for the rant but please tell me something will happen soon!

if our buyer drops out we will not achieve the same price again but it seems that nothing onwards is being priced all that realistically!

looked at one today which the EA described as ‘quirky’ but they still wanted a fortune for it! Ahhh!

Tell me about it. Back today from yet another viewing where the house is mutton dressed as lamb. EA is telling me how immaculate the husband is with paperwork and maintenance. I'm looking around at massive splits in windowsills, PVC coming off windows, dog chewed carpet, water marks around light fittings and loft hatch, direly worn fancy looking kitchen and want to ask her if she's effing shitting me. It's been on the market 3 times in 15 months and this time it's on at the same price as it was in August, at the peak of the market. Dude, really?

I'd find this far less painful if EAs were honest with photos. Remarkably, this time the rooms were far bigger than the photos portrayed, but the garden's literally half the size I thought.

When I was a teenager, garden sizes were always listed in feet on print outs. Why has that gone away?

I'm now treating this as a numbers/waiting game.

We’re in the same position. SSTC, but can’t find anything, and if anything nice does come onto the market there are 20 people fighting over it so it goes way over asking 🤦🏼‍♀️

Surely this just means the market is still high in your area? Are you expecting to sell high but buy low?

I've been looking for over a year. Got outbid on several last year and now what I'm mostly seeing is probate sales needing loads of work or decent houses at silly prices. Not a lot is selling.

Extremely frustrating

Glad there are others that feel my pain!

@User6424678852 no I am just trying to move! I sold mine to the best offer that we got, the market decided! Everything else we are looking to buy, their prices make no sense! When comparing sold prices from the peak in the summer, how can something in worse condition be on the market for 100k more now?

the market where I am is not buoyant. People negotiating 100k off asking prices where I am.

Me too OP. I viewed a house this morning that I had to try really hard not to be physically sick in. Mostly because if I was sick, I would have had to set foot in the downstairs bathroom which was the source of the years-of-stale-urine stench that overpowered the whole house.

It needed a new bathroom (moving upstairs as well), new carpets everywhere (or replacing with flooring, such as in the bathroom), replastering, redecorating, conservatory demolishing (not safe), some new windows, and a new kitchen straight off the bat before you could move in and it was "priced to sell" at the going rate for turnkey houses of the same size with bigger gardens. It didn't even have parking and the garden was mostly a twelve foot high hedge, the dangerous conservatory, and a little space for the bins.

Unfortunately, the decent houses aren't really coming on the market at the moment, we're only getting probate sales around here, so these dumps are getting sold to people desperate to move.

We're seriously considering it as it's our only option and the thought makes me want to cry.

This is the real problem with increased mortgage rates.
People were crowing about house prices dropping but ignored the fact that many people don't NEED to sell. Especially those already in family homes. They can afford to sit tight and wait for prices to increase again.
This is why we rushed to buy just as rates started to rise.
Now people aren't selling unless they absolutely have to.

I really feel for you OP. House hunting is terrible and the process in England is painful.

@Omgwtafisthat do we know it’s the ‘peak’ last summer in all places?

Even in the same area there’s so much variation. There’s a street near us that I would love to live on. That, and the two streets around it, are still selling above last summer prices.

a house listed last summer at 340k, sold for 370k. Another listed earlier this year- north facing garden, no garage, not as nice finish, further from the tram stop- 345k and sold for just under 360k. another on that street which needs a completely gutting inside listed at 290k and sold for 305k. Similar for the houses on the streets around it.

And it’s under 10mins walk from our house where all the houses have dropped in value (based on the listing prices and land registry sold prices).

so the theory of upsizing in a falling market because the % drops are larger wouldn’t work for us.

Buy my house please , it really is immaculate 🙏🤣

Are these houses selling or remaining unsold? If they're selling then you are being unrealistic, they are worth what someone will pay. If not then the prices will get cut or people will simply decide to stay put.

Well OP has said that people are negotiating large price increases off. I think that means that the 'area' is not in-demand. It could also depend on the type of house.
Where I moved from was in the catchment of grammar schools, tram, diverse etc. Plenty of action from Hong Kong buyers unaffected by mortgage rates, then. and now.
Another area where even at the best of times barely ANYTHING comes up for sale.... so when it does... offers pour in hand over fist.

I currently live in a decidedly more, erm, 'downmarket' area and prices have lowered slightly. There are still houses going offers over however they are well priced. And the prices have not dropped by a particularly large amount.

@SlowlyLosing the one I viewed today has been on since about January, they dropped it by £50k recently, but was originally priced well over what I've seen better houses selling at last year. Unfortunately nothing seems to be coming on the market so I think it will sell soon. There are a steady supply of 2-bed houses and flats coming up around here with "no onward chain" as landlords are quitting in droves, but it's just so hard to find family-sized homes right now at any price point.

Realistically, if we don't get the terrible 3-bedroom house, we're going to have to buy a 2-bed (for a family of four) and be very cramped while we wait this out.

People just haven’t got the buying power they use to have when the rates were 1/2%. People can’t pay the prices they were paying and people also can’t afford to remortgage to pay for work either.

Things that used to sell in days are now hanging around for months where we are. Market is definitely down, I think it is in more places than not tbh.

Ah, that type of seller who says "We will only sell to you when we find our dream property".....................two years later.....................

Either call it off or move into rented. Just don't mess other people around.

"I sold mine to the best offer that we got, the market decided!"

What is available for sale and the pricing the owners accept will tell you will tell you what you can afford to buy. If you see something you want at a higher price then offer lower, the response you get might be positive but if you keep doing that and getting nowhere you know you will have to look at smaller places or wait to move. As you have said yourself, the market decides - as frustrating as that is.

The seller doesn't need to - the buyer can walk away at any time. It's on them to decide how long they're prepared to wait.
And more importantly they might be facing the same issue... there is nothing else that they'd like to buy!

If people around are negotiating huge reductions on asking prices, can't you just ignore the asking prices and offer what you think is fair?

Prices in my area haven't dropped, they didn't in 2008 either. They flatlined but never went down. What did happen was you couldn't get offers above asking price which is what was happening in peak years.

@HorseyMel we were and are upfront with our buyers. They’ve said they want our house and are prepared to wait for it.

@OddBoots very true. We are finding that there are two types of seller, the ones who are testing the market and the ones that have to sell. Unfortunately all the houses we want are from ones who can take it or leave it, so won’t entertain any lower offers,

Where do you live out of intereest?

@Omgwtafisthat

"We are finding that there are two types of seller, the ones who are testing the market and the ones that have to sell. Unfortunately all the houses we want are from ones who can take it or leave it, so won’t entertain any lower offers,"

Oh, isn't that nice.

You want to buy from someone who, presumably because of precarious circumstances, needs to sell, no matter what the cost to them.

Offer what you think a property is worth or stop wasting everybody's time.

The rate rises take time to hit the market negatively.
This standoff can’t continue in the same way, when people realise en masse that houses are certainly losing value they will either have to sell quickly or not, also causing prices to drop.
Some areas are just very popular and always will be, but in a declining market eventually even these areas will lose value.

And this is completely irrelevant to those who don't need to sell.

People need to sell all the time regardless of the market. That’s life

You haven't read my post, have you?

No. I’m commenting on the post not your comment