No viewing on our house in two weeks!

[Nataliemcm9]

I know the current market isn’t great, but we have had our house up for sale coming up to two weeks and not one single view. I’m starting to think maybe it’s up for too much? But we don’t want to reduce it yet. Is anyone else have the same issue with selling their home at the moment?

This. No viewings at all= your house is overpriced.

Friends just sold their house at full asking to the first person who viewed. They had many viewings lined up within 24hr of going on sale. But it's priced very well for the finish.

No viewings in 6 m despite reducing price
Changed agents

The chances are very high that all the houses getting no viewings are over prices, probably v significantly. If I were looking to buy, I would be looking for a significant reduction from the 2022 figure, at least 10%, depending on the area, etc. I strongly expect prices to fall much more and there is a lot of negative housing press of which many buyers are now aware. Plus, affordability is severely constrained for many. Interest rates, falling wages, high inflation, etc has made a big difference.

Buyers will feel it is pointless to view a property that they think is, say 15-20%+ over priced because they will think that the sellers are unrealistic and won't negotiate. If things are priced correctly, they will sell. I've said the same thing on other threads but some sellers don't like to hear it. It is exactly what @Sarah1217 has said and demonstrated clearly by her anecdote below:

'If it makes you feel better there was a street in the area we are looking where two houses came up for sale (270-280). A third came on for offers over 225. One house dropped to match their price. The third stayed at its original price. It was in better condition than the other two, but was smaller and the layout wasn't as good. The two lower priced houses sold within days. The third is still on the market a month later. So there ARE buyers out there for properties that are priced right.'

Imo, if you want to sell, drop the price significantly (not 2%), present it well, make sure your agent is pro active (unlike one of the agents already mentioned), negotiate on your onward purchase and be pro active once STC.

Good for your friend who priced her home realistically. Far easier process and hopefully the sale will complete.

I'm sorry but it must be very over priced. Not a single viewing in 6 months is bonkers if you actually intend to sell.

So OP, there's a YouTube show called UK Property Markets Stats Show. It's hosted by a guy who is a statistician, using data from EA back end software.

This week, week 34, he said the difference in asking price of new homes coming to the market versus those marked as sold STC is 16.5%. Last week that gap was 11%. I think this is because a lot of people hold out til September and either the EA or the EA and the vendor are trying to test the market or have completely unrealistic expectations.

I have been keeping an eye on about three areas, I manually counted the number of reductions in one of them on Weds, it was 37% in one pride bracket, 39% in another. Those are 'slow bleed' reductions. The EA says to the vendor 'the market isn't great, should we try a reduction?' and the vendor says, 'okay, reduce by 5/10k.' More often than not, it's still not enough to budge them. It doesn't tell buyers you are serious about selling quickly, it tells them someone vastly overpriced in the first place, and they will hold on and hold on to get as much as they possibly can for their house.

I have nothing against people doing that, but the strategy is not working in areas where prices are falling. I literally saw one property today that had been reduced by 5k for about six months running.

BUT HERE IS THE THING

Those sold STC prices aren't the actually prices the homes sold for. You need to take 5-10% off a SOLD STC price to get closer to the real truth of what homes are selling for.

That means, in week 34, most new homes listed were being marketed for 21.5-26.5% more than buyers are willing to pay.

Do you see the problem? It's not small, it's absolutely vast, and EAs don't seem to be willing or capable of telling sellers that the best way to get your home sold in a falling market is to vastly underprice it, which will get an absolute ton of feet through the door, and bidding wars.

It's the only way to get sold if properties in your area aren't flying off the shelf.

And as some others said, if you feel it's vastly overpriced, you won't even view. Why do I have to be the cheeky bastard who goes in with a 25% offer and get branded a timewaster by your EA when in fact, they were the ones advertising it vastly over its value in the first place?

The answer is, I don't, because I cannot be bothered. I would rather watch the price fall whilst reality sets in rather than have a ton of awkward conversations because I have absolutely no need to move in a rush - but at the same time - I have all the money, and am quite ready to move.

It's all quite silly, really.

You have answered your own question. 67% increase in 5 years. Unless you have added another floor it seems a huge jump. You don't want to start chasing the market down. We are looking again to buy and the interest rates rising means we can only afford a house 35% less than we could afford 2 years ago. :(

we have had one viewing in six weeks.. and over the summer holidays, too! luckily we're not in a rush to sell but I think we'll have to drop the price soon.

Us too. Just had first viewing after 4 weeks on the market. Our house is a bit unusual so EA agreed it was difficult to price. We knew we had gone quite high so not really surprised. Lots around locally have dropped prices in last week or so.

@KievLoverTwo where are you getting that sold prices should 5%-10% off the list price for the true price? In the areas we’re looking, prices between listed from June 23 to latest sold ( May 23) prices vary between 5% under to 5% over. One was 15% over but also an outlier. I’d say averaging 1% under asking.

some houses (don’t look like they’ve touched in years) are listed and marked as sold within a week.

not saying it’s the same as last year by any stretch, but it’s not reached 10% under here.

not applicable or helpful to the OP (sorry)

It's depressing isn't it. We will change agent next week and may drop the price again.. but if those in the area we're trying to buy won't do the same, we won't be able to afford anything else suitable. We won't be able to afford this house in a years time either :(

This echos my thoughts, I'm afraid. Where does the 67% increase in price in 5 years come from, especially as prices have fallen in the last 12 months nationally? Does it not seem excessive to you? I don't live near Manchester so am not familiar with the market but this seems very high unless you have increased the sq footage considerably, as the other posters has said.

Exactly @KievLoverTwo . There is a huge disconnect between what sellers and EAs think is reasonable and what sellers can afford and are willing to pay. Buyers don't want to waste their time with ridiculously priced property. Anything sells for the right price. If you need to reduce to sell, make sure you negotiate on whatever you buy and choose another realistic seller.

Moving home with Charlie. In case you have never heard of him, he is quite disliked by some on here and appreciated by others (he doesn’t half drone on). He is an IT guy who also gets the back end EA software with the sold prices, I think he writes the software.

I do remember an EA proudly telling me in April that they are still achieving 97%, but that was in a very quaint little village, and four months ago.

If you look up the video I mentioned up above, week 34, you can download the slides with all the data from the comments. I mentioned about 37% of properties being reduced but I think the national average is over 50% reductions iirc. You do sort of have to watch one of the videos to help understand how to interpret it, I watched week 33, half of 34, now I understand exactly what the data mean, I probably don’t need to watch another, I will just download his weekly slides.

How are you finding out what houses have sold for whilst also knowing what they were advertised for? I can sometimes still catch the advert if the land reg has fed through quickly enough, but it’s quite rare. Mostly the sold adverts have been deleted from RM - even July LR sold ones when I looked on 29th August.

The house has not increased by 100k in 5 years, interest rates were at zero five years ago and if the offer then was 150k that should be a starting point to see if there are viewers still interested in that price level, the OP should be using PropertyLog to see what other sellers of similar properties are doing because if you are being ambitious with pricing while the competition is price cutting absolutely no one will bother viewing as everyone is aware of these apps now.

It’s wasting so much time. EAs are cutting off their noses to spite their face. I can go in at 5-10% under a realistic asking price now and give them a quick and easy sale, or I can wait for two more BoE rate rises and for more really unpleasant data to appear in the news towards the end of the year, then go in and REALLY lowball them, because who exactly is left in your buying pool when mortgage rates are 7% ?

It makes me feel like quite an unpleasant person who is basically saying ‘nah, I will wait until sellers reach the edge of despair and then I will swoop in’, but if the bloody houses were priced what they are worth NOW, I wouldn’t even need to be typing these words out, would I?

Or, even worse, I can just sit in my really comfortable rental for another two years, save up a ton more money, then potentially pay some poor sod 25% less than I would now in two years’ time.

Neither make me feel like a good person. I feel like sellers have been trapped in a false bubble for years, being told left right and centre that their homes will give them a rich retirement. Now they’re rapidly seeing those claims diminish.

He is WAY too late to the party, the time to pay attention to his droning was BEFORE interest rates shot up, and essentially stay out of the market (he is just reading HPC and throwing it out on YouTube I think) most people now are just stepping back waiting for the market correction that should have happened in 2008.

People were repeatedly warned what would happen when rates went up, adults have to take responsibility for their own debt decisions, the poor sod you talk about has contributed to pricing others out by borrowing silly amounts of money or by thinking that their house value was a given as others would just keep borrowing silly amounts of money.

So in 5 years its added 66% value on top again? Seems far too much to add 100k to a 150k house in 5 years unless you've missed a massive extension out?

I think Charlie likes the party to be his own party, tbh. And what is this HPC? Do users have to wear tin foil hats?

Cannot disagree that the government made some serious errors in judgement with their meddling over the last few decades.

Aren't willing?

more like aren't able!

im in the SE & I can't borrow as much as I could when I started looking. I now can't afford to make the step up to the next level.

even if the bank would let me borrow what I need, I just can't afford the repayments.
Unable. Not unwilling.

Good Luck to everyone selling. (I'm not selling until I find something to buy.) there's just nothing affordable on the market where I need to live.

"And what is this HPC?"

Possibly the best in-depth discussion on the internet about what has been happening financially over the last 20 or so years, but again not much point in people studying it now, the time for people to find HPC , like Charlie, was BEFORE they got into massive debt and rates went up.

Were they though? By whom, exactly? So the bank may say ‘consider what will happen if your rate goes from 0.77 to 3.77’ and most responsible people will do those sums, but who the heck who didn’t buy before about 2016 really knew that a) it could go from 0.77 to 7.00 b) after a global pandemic that saw a lot of people out of work and c) during a cost of living crisis??

The financial education I got from my mum was: credit cards are bad, here is how you go about avoiding paying high interest on them. I got zero financial management education at school, the bank does NOT say ‘consider if you would be able to pay your mortgage if it gets to 15% like it did in X, Y and Z year’ - so - please tell me, how exactly are people meant to account for all these things happening at once, and how are they meant to know what completely unimaginable numbers they should be accounting for?

Yes. I do feel bad for them. I grew up in an era where credit was thrown at me without me asking for it, and it took many years for me to be clever enough to understand the full implications of it! I was jus young and stupid and yay, free money!

Thank god I never had kids. This is so much worse for them.

Spot on.
Were cash buyers, no chain, in rented. We're in a desirable area in Cheshire.
Houses are still going on way overpriced and some even offers over.
I've never seen so many houses just sat there, for months.
We'll wait it out until there's at least some sensible reductions before making any offer atall.