How long before a viewing?

[wereonthemarket]

We went to market on Thursday!

Not sure what to expect now - I guess I expected a viewing booked very quickly?! It feels strange being in a sort of limbo waiting to see if anyone wants to view.

We agreed a price with the estate agent close to the top of their valuation and said we'd keep it there til mid January before reevaluating the price.

In no hurry to move but obviously now we've started the process I think I want something to happen 😂

Yes a viewing booked and cancelled (house was too small after they thought about it). And another person enquiring who had seen the for sale board but did not book to view at this time.

Agent sent an update saying for the house size, price etc they'd except it to take a little longer than an 'average priced house'. They say there aren't many people in the area with that budget.

I guess we wait and see what happens.

Definitely don’t post a link! Unless people live in your area, they don’t know the market, and you will just get a load of people commenting purely to criticise your curtains or something.

I would have said you should be getting viewings in the first 2-3 weeks. We just offered on a house, and we deliberately avoided viewing in the first week so we didn’t look too keen, and put the offer in a few days later, again so the seller doesn’t think we are desperate (which we aren’t, and the house needs a tonne of work doing).

If you’ve had no viewing in 3 weeks though, you are on too high and need to take it off the market, and put it back on in a couple of weeks at 10% less. I wouldn’t view a house that was on at £700k if I thought was worth £625 - I’d assume the seller was unrealistic and wouldn’t accept an offer that low below asking price.

I live in the north east and just googled houses within 30 miles of me that are £500-600k and honestly even if I had the magic money most of them look severely underwhelming.

Like how are some people asking that much for a semi detached average house?

Last year a GORGEOUS house for £550k was for sale, of course I don't have that money so just a right move fantasy. However to be honest anything £500k seems pretty equivalent to anything I can get for £300k, it would have to be REALLY special to make me willing to pay that extra.

The BIG detached historic house with land (use to be refereed to as the 'mansion' by local kids) in the village I grew up in just sold for £190k and that was far out of the reaches of most affordability round here. So I don't really know who would be buying a £500k house up here in the north east.

"Like how are some people asking that much for a semi detached average house?"

Simply because they have been brainwashed by many years of cheap debt and people just bidding houses up and up without any thought of how they would pay the debt back.

Use PropertyLog to find the serious sellers and ignore the rest IMO.

I too have been up unaffordable price brackets of hundreds of thousands in the NE and can confirm I'm absolutely flabberghasted at what's on the market for 500-600k.

If you'd asked me three years ago what I think these houses are worth (before I lived anywhere that wasn't in the South), I'd say maybe 300k at most.

The quality just isn't there. It feels like people are trying to mug buyers.

'Yeh maybe that's it - we need to expect lower than we originally thought. Which might just mean we won't sell at the mo will wait for the market to change again.'
So you don't really need/ want to sell then and are testing the market, so to speak. I don't expect the market to improve rapidly myself but we'll see.

Testing the market when it's falling seems an odd decision tbh.

It does rather but plenty of people seem to be doing it, at least I assume they are because they are not pricing their properties to sell.

Agent sent an update saying for the house size, price etc they'd except it to take a little longer than an 'average priced house'. They say there aren't many people in the area with that budget.

I guess it depends whether you are marketing to the very top of the market, or actually marketing to normal middle class professionals? Is your house the local mansion, or at least a very exceptional house? Or is it a slightly larger than average 4 bed?

There may not be many CEOs locally, but there will be plenty of doctors, lawyers, accountants and head teachers. If they are your target market, make sure you haven’t priced it out of their range.

Lot of psychology involved I would say, many of these sellers are not serious sellers they just want the validation that their house is worth X amount? I think most of them will be disappointed TBH, even if the odd person does bid asking price the likelihood is that their bank will drum some sense into them at valuation time?

Price, price and price.

We went to market on a Thursday at the end of July, and we had viewings booked for the Monday and the Tuesday. We had an offer on Tuesday but we waited until Thursday to accept as we had more viewings booked.

We're in the south west and selling a home at the bottom end of the market - a bog-standard 2-bed, end terrace. EA suggested £170-180k - that's a very competitive price for round here. Similar houses in my town go for anything from £170k to around £210k, it's really hard to see why some get that little bit extra but our street usually maxes out at around £185k.

Our priority was speed. We have reasons to want to move quickly - a solid buyer and a reasonable price were more important than hanging on for weeks to try and get an extra few thousand in a falling market. We listed for £180k as EA still thought it would be competitive at that price - but we accepted an offer for £170k because the buyers were excellent, chain-free and able to move quickly (and they have!)

My property is nothing special but nice enough for a 2-bed starter-type home. Decent location. Some work needed.

There is no reason why our house should have shifted so quickly when there are other similar properties on the market that were listed before us and are still not sold. I am convinced it's because we started at a competitive price - that attracted attention instantly and we had five viewings booked right away. I was expecting tumbleweed so I was very happy!!!

Some of the other viewers were interested apparently, but they wanted second viewings etc, and someone wanted to bring a friend. The one that did offer immediately were keen, able to move quickly and had their mortgage and everything lined up - for us, this was more valuable than lukewarm buyers in a falling market.

As PP have said, chasing the market down is a fool's game. You'll end up with less than if you'd priced competitively in the first place. Of course, if you're not really bothered about selling then that's not an issue as you can just wait it out for the next few years while the market bottoms out, and then starts to rise again.

I was very certain about how much our house was worth because it's very easy to value and lots of comparative properties nearby. How confident are you about the EA? Did you get any other valuations in to cross-check? That would seem to be particularly important for you as your property is unusual and sounds hard to value.

We could not sell our property for years. This year the agent advised to reduce it by 50K, we put it on the market at 70K less but sold within 3 months for another 30K less, so sold for 100K less than the last year's valuation. We were disappointed, but in this market we could not be too choosy. Bear in mind prices will still be falling, so if you don't price right now, less chances of selling later.

Another agent told us that the agreed price now is on average 8% less than the asking price. I have been monitoring properties for a few months now. The market was still buoyant in spring when it was selling well, but over the summer got quieter and quieter. What is selling fast: recently renovated and extended properties or value for money or in a really desirable village/area. Those needing gutting out stick around for ages and keep reducing the price, but still not selling.

Also, I forgot to say - it's not just the price that your EA sets, it's their knowledge. How good is your EA?

I knew what EA I would use as we sold DM's house last year. She struggled to sell in a hot market as her property was a bit weird! We tried three different mainstream agents after getting valuations from several EAs. No one could shift it in over six months until we tried our local, independent guy.

He got DM's house sold within 2 weeks. He's amazing. And he shifted ours within just a few days of listing, despite the market being sluggish.

This local independent EA really knows our area well. It's his own business and his passion. He is excellent at understanding who to market the houses to - and his team get on the phone to the right kind of buyers to actively promote the house. The previous (chain) EAs all got viewings for DM's house but you could tell that they were never going to offer (the layout of DM's house wouldn't suit young families, for example, and the viewings would turn up with toddlers and babies....).

I can text our EA seven days a week. I'm never waiting longer than an hour for a reply. Our allocated person in the EA's office rings me to let me know what's going on every week, and also every time something happens with the buyer's solicitors.

Honestly, I wouldn't go with a chain EA again. A local, independent person who really cares about their business and has a thorough understanding of the area will be an enormous asset. It's been a bloody game-changer for us.

What a dream of an EA you have! Ours is also local and independent, but hardly better than the chain ones.

Honestly, I can't believe our luck! We've had such a shitty time with the planning department, an architect who lied about being a qualified architect, shitty builders, a terrible solicitor who lost us the mortgage because they fucked up. We even had an EA last year who committed fraud (forged DM's signature!!!).

So with all of that crappy luck, it's like we're having amazing luck with this brilliant EA to balance out the karma haha 😅

I sound like I'm an advert for his agency haha but honestly if anything, I'm understating what he does.

He's only been going a couple of years but he's already won awards. I've never had to chase for an update and he gives solid, practical advice without being pushy. He's not your typical "salesy" guy.

Also - no tie-in when you sell your property with him!! He says that he doesn't want to tie sellers to his estate agency, he wants people to use him because they want to. If it's not working for any reason, you can remove your property and go elsewhere. No notice period. No tie-in. Charges 1% so no more than our other EAs round here. .

In fairness, we had another local EA that we got talking to when we were viewing houses and he seemed really on the ball too. Maybe we have just really shit chain EAs and unusually good independent ones here 😅

@SpidersAreShitheads I think you are correct about why you STC so quickly. You and the agent were both realistic about pricing. Your EA sounds exceptionally good. I'm sure everyone wishes that they were all like this!

Yes we absolutely don't have to sell. I realise some people do but mostly people sell because they want to not have to?

I suppose you could call it testing the market. And I'm ok with that.

My parents had about 15 viewings booked within 2 days. They got lucky! But I. Think their house was under priced.

hi all, if you're trying to sell your house and it's not selling. it's usually the price.

hi OP

I suppose you could call it testing the market. And I'm ok with that.

Why are you wasting buyer's time? this is very arrogant of you as a seller and wasting buyer's time and money. you know some people have paid for a mortgage fee with their hard earned money and then there's sellers who are just "testing the market" and not even serious about selling. you should pay back anyone who has lost money because of your "testing the market"

'Yes we absolutely don't have to sell. I realise some people do but mostly people sell because they want to not have to?'

Mixture of reasons for selling. There are always those who do need to sell and they are the ones who make the market, those who do actually sell. Those who choose to withdraw if they don't achieve whatever figure they have in their head are irrelevant in terms of most of the stats and just end up wasting estate agent's and buyer's time. Obviously, there are some buyers who waste people's time too but they don't cost the agents in the same way.

It wasn't luck. It was because your parents chose to price their home realistically and therefore attracted interest.

It doesn't cost money to view a property so what are you even talking about? Perfectly reasonable for someone who owns something to put it up for sale at a certain price and say we won't accept offers below a certain amount because although we want to sell, we aren't desperate to sell.

I'm currently advertising my car in an online auction and I have a reserve price because I'm not prepared to sell it for peanuts. Nothing wrong with that, people do it with all sorts of things they want to sell.

The only person it costs to view houses is the EA. And that cost is, effectively, built into everyone’s fees.

Testing the market is a fine approach if that works for you. Say you would sell if you could get £500k for your house but would prefer to stay if you could only get £450k - the only way to find out is to put on the market and stay on for a while.

Good luck.