Asking price are still very high and sellers are still thinking it is 2020

[BroglieBoy]

A 3 bed house was listed in Wokingham for £700K in June this year. It was then reduced to £650K then to £600K and then very recently reduced to £550K.

House is a Probate with 2 individuals.

The house looks fine and needs some modernisation. New carpets, new decoration new kitchen units.

The house next door which is a 4-bed house was sold in June 2023 for £492K.

I would expect the estate agent to be aware of the recent sold prices in the area( in fact recent sold price of the adjacent property ) and market it accordingly.

How come the estate agent thinks they can market a property that is smaller than the adjacent property, but market it for more than the recently sold prices, especially in a falling market?

same in my local areas. Many houses sitting on the market for ages and some with no reductions at all even after several months.
Are the sellers thinking that rates will go back to zero and the boom will come back?
As someone already pointed out earlier on this thread, this is going to be slow and long slow down and rates are going only one way up and will stay up for the foreseeable future.

Often sellers pay no notice to what the agent advises.

sometimes a period of ‘expectation management’ has to take place

If it's the one I've found it looks like it could be extended to something worth around 900k for around 200k worth of work making it a very good deal.

Two neighbouring houses in my street. 4 bed detached about seven years old. House A has a big garden and house B a smaller one. Both put on the market a year ago for £525000. Both later reduced to £500000. House A further reduced and has just sold for £415000. House B still on for 500K and owners still think they can get that. Sheer greed.

And that is why transaction have slowed down forcing agents to get new business even if it means onboarding vastly optimistically priced houses that will sit on the shelves of large chains for months. Since the person in charge of valuation is often paid based on number of property on their book rather than sold ones, the music continues until gravity resumes.

We've seen houses re-listed lately sometimes up to £50k more than they were earlier in the year. Not sales fallen through as these were just taken off line and now with same or different EA.

Yeah they want to anker the price higher and then expect they have to give a big discount.

It's funny because that makes me offer even less to offset their ankering.

A house we are viewing in a week that has been on since April 2022 has now reduced from 875k to 850k, still overpriced by about 100-150k, guess they actually want to sell now, let's see.

Seller doesn't have to sell. Sounds like you can't afford the price rather than anything to do with the seller.

I guess it depends on the sellers situation?

We just put ours on the market yesterday. The EA valued at £650-700. We decided to put £695. We are testing the market - we want to move in the next 2 years so are in no hurry.

I suspect if we find a perfect new house at a reasonable price we may drop ours to accelerate a sale. But if not we'll just wait and see what happens.

Some people want to move much quicker and set a price accordingly. Houses priced liked this in our area are selling within days. I guess what I'm saying is people price how they want, based on some input from an EA but you can't know their situation.

I find it funny too.

We need a BIG house (large family + business from home) so the houses we are looking at are all people desperate to downsize. All have quite openly told us that along with reasons why (things like older seller has broken hip falling down the steep stairs or house is to much to keep on top of with 2 autistic children etc...).

All over priced (according to the valuations) but also keep hearing from EA 'They won't accept less they need the asking price to upgrade'. They already said they are wanting to move from a 5 bed town houses DOWN to a 2/3 bed thats EASILY done (10 a penny round here as its standard house size) and costs far less not more.

In reality they are thinking 5 beds are 'rarer' and thus they should get loads more nothing to do with 'moving on'. Thing is while 5 beds are in fact much rarer than 2/3 beds (standard build) they aren't actually all that rare over all (we have viewed several as half of all houses have been extended).

They can ask what they like, its not going to sell though and I just get tired of 'old' adds clogging up rightmove.

I can also offer what I want too, I find their huge offense at being offered what the value of their house actually is quite funny though. If they say 'no' it doesn't effect me at all. I'm looking at several other houses too it not like they are my one and only option.

If they are going from a 5 bed house to a 3 bed bungalow, the price probably won't be dissimilar - bungalows are extortionate. With the exception of a smattering, every bungalow I have seen in the last 3 months also needs 30-80k spent on it where the previous owners did nothing for 30 years anyway.

What sort of price difference is there between advertised and actual value, in your opinion?

The thing is, some of them do, that's why the market is already dropping.

And those that don't need to sell urgently are chasing the market down.

But you are not really selling, more so chancing to see if someone is willing to pay a good price, only then you may want to move. The exact same can be said for buyers, some could accommodate with more space/closer to the tube/whatnot but are not desperate to buy. The market is made where sellers from the 3Ds or relocation meet the motivated buyer ready to make a deal happen. Right now, the market is yet to adjust for the extra cost of borrowing, meaning a reduced pool of buyer increasingly looked after by a growing number of downsizers. For now, all we have is a stand off with little transacting, we ll see what the rest of 2023 brings.

They can advise but they can't make them do anything. It's their house.
Why does this bother you though? Sellers can ask whatever they want for their property it doesn't mean it will sell though and ,buyers can offer what they want to it might not be accepted.

Ultimately a house is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

When EA provides you value what are they basing it on?
That's my point in the original post. I would expect EA to value a property taking into account what's been sold for similar houses in the local area. If the value is based on recent sales in your local area then EA has done a good job.
If the EA is not doing their due diligence and pulling a number from thin air, then it's a waste of everyone's time.

In the example I provided in my original post, I noticed that a bigger house adjacent to the property was sold much lower than the asking price of a smaller property.

Barn conversion local to me

(Right by main road hence the price...)

£400k

Bought for £320k less then 2 years ago in 2021

Are they mad? Or just not paying attention?

They have not done £80k worth of work to it
🤷

Well… it’s up to the buyers to decide if they want to buy at that price or not. And if they’ve priced it too high, then no one’s going to buy

My problem is how to find the true value of a property.

There's no such thing as a true value. It comes down to what the seller is prepared to sell for. What I've noticed in my area over the past few months is that a number of houses have been pulled off the market and re-advertised as rental properties.

Clearly there are sellers out there who simply aren't willing to accept a lower offer and would rather wait it out.

Yes, in my area there were houses for sale for several months and most were down recently just a bit. Now they are all gone. So currently there is not decent or any stock at all. EA are pestering us go to into the market. ( calling to see if we are selling, flyers, letters) So I guess that with the higher than ever rental prices people prefer to stay put or wait and see. This could mean that the falling market as expected may not materialise as was expected in the end.

Nextdoor sold over asking last week after only days on the market for more than we paid last year! And that's mid vs. our end terrace. A house is worth what someone will pay, and people can ask for what they like. Prices aren't falling universally.
If you think a house is overpriced, buy something else.

When EA provides you value what are they basing it on?
That's my point in the original post. I would expect EA to value a property taking into account what's been sold for similar houses in the local area. If the value is based on recent sales in your local area then EA has done a good job.

Ultimately, it's not up to the estate agent. The estate agent works for the seller. If the seller doesn't want to sell at a lower price then they simply won't.

This is why significant falls in house prices usually only occur when there are a lot of forced sellers (i.e. repossessions). To see a house price crash we would need a big recession.

I'm looking at various regions of the country, FTB, Cash buyer.

I spat my coffee out with this one:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/138552569?utm_campaign=property-details&utm_content=buying&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=copytoclipboard#/&channel=RES_BUY

Sold earlier this year at £148k. Zero work done, but now asking £170k! What world is the seller & EA in? I've checked similar properties, same location and its way over priced! Thing is, it puts serious prospective buyers off! To me it screams pure greed and clear red flag with seller!

The estate agent will have valued the property in the right ballpark price range. However, it is the seller who decides on what they want to sell it for, and the agent will advertise it at that price. If they won't agree to market it for the price the seller wants, then the seller will just go to another estate agent who will.

Just because they advise the seller doesn’t mean the seller will listen.

In a probate sale there’s possibly multiple people involved.

When a close relative of mine divorced he basically had to put his house up for sale at a high price he wouldn’t get as it was the only price his ex would agree to. Only when they got nowhere would she listen to the agent about the likely selling price.