It's a Buyer's Market: experiences in 2023/2024 ?

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Just wondering what other buyer's experiences have been like on this side of 2023? Any horror stories? Issues with sellers? Guzumping? Guzundering? Problems with EA?

There's a few threads with Seller's experiences on MN (many saying their buyer can't afford the mortgage for their (overpriced?) property and so re marketing them).

What good and bad experiences have you had as a buyer?

Hope this thread will be useful to the buyers of 2023 and 2024!

Ok, some people just wanted a home, fair enough.

Nice one Crashy x

Exactly this! I mean, it's called a box room for a reason lol

Er, no. Only you have made up this bit about people paying 4-5K a month mortgage. The rest of us are discussing house prices in the ftb range, and then the thread moved to replying to the ridiculous statement that calling an upstairs room that fits a bed in it, a bedroom is somehow 'lying' or 'false claims' by the EA.

Did a lot of wfh during covid and haven’t seen any of my colleagues in such rooms. Have you actually tried to work for 8 hours in the room you can barely fit a grow up in? It's a fantasy made up by sellers whose entire life achievement is that house.

Yes, dh does regularly, and I do regularly. In truth, I don't see what size most colleagues rooms are as obviously most professionals keep a 'background' on, when on a conference call to a colleague or client, but I know plenty of people that wfh in "the third bedroom" where the third bedroom is what is commonly known as the box room. I mean, I'm not quite sure what additional space you would need - well, maybe if you had an Only Fans page which required a bit more ahem, space to move around in ???

It's not made up. If you're in London or know london (like I do, because i grew up there), 4-5K a month mortgages are a thing - for some it's a thing because of the hiked up interest rates!

The rest of us are not only discussing house prices in the ftb range. As you will see from every comment, they come from a range of different buyers and sellers, inc some who are in the middle of a chain themselves (they are both buyer and seller).

And whether you work regularly in a box room or not, the point some are making is whether these houses with box rooms are worth their (over)-priced tags. You will find many people will see them as glorified large house, when in fact, they are slightly large two bedders being sold as a proper three bedder and with that price tag.

A loose definition of false advertising: False advertising is defined as the act of publishing, transmitting, or otherwise publicly circulating an advertisement containing a false claim.

You don't need to take it personally because you have a home with a box room, or work out of a small/box room - there is nothing wrong with that. The topic is actually about the prices people are seeing for them, which are extortionate.

The reality is, many people want value for money in today's market. Box rooms are not value for money if the house is already over-priced. Buyers aren't stupid.

You’re just being inappropriate with your silly assumptions now. Long hours in the box room are very uncomfortable. It’s fine if you sat down do to something for an hour or so, but professionals who spending 12 hours at their screens definitely want more pleasant surroundings. And yes, surprisingly so, in London what would can only be classed as ftb house 90sq.m., box room, 2 bedrooms on the market between 700-900k (5-6k monthly repayments), which they dare to advertise as spacious 3 bedrooms. And that’s why they’re all sitting unsold, because there value for money just doesn’t make sense with current interest rates.

I think the other issue I have with boxed rooms is that couples usually buy them as a starter house for a new family (which is fine, i understand why), but if they end up with a few kids and then in a situation where they can't or won't sell later for a bigger house etc, then there's a child literally growing up in there.

There was another thread on MN where a parent had a son and daughter in one small room (teenagers) asking for advice about layout so they could have privacy, and I'm sure they never thought they'd be in that situation and thought they'd sell and move into a larger home, but with high interest rates and being sucked into this obsession with "owning" property, a lot of people during the years of low interest rates overspent and blew their budget. There are other factors too.

I also know of a family who have a box room and their teenage daughter has it while the two sons have the second double room, and this poor girl literally does her homework in her brother's room. It's not ideal. I find it unfair on growing children... and then you have a bunch of adults (EA and sellers) trying to dress it up as a spacious bedroom. errrr naaaaah. I'd say it's immoral.

you only need to read the psychology behind why you (let alone children) need space to breathe, think, study, and also have some decent privacy

I'm not the type to blame these families though, a lot of people in our country don't have financial literacy, they don't teach us this anywhere, I just feel bad for these kids (or, young adults really!). and also, it comes down to affordability. but why aren't they affordable... because houses are over-priced!!

With Starmer's goal to build 1.5million houses in 5 years 🙄(where have we heard this before 😴) I hope they will scrap this box room design and instead create proper family homes that have the real space.

I have seen ads in the UK where the bedrooms are roughly 1 x 10 sqm, 1 x 7 sqm and 1 x 6sqm. In Portugal, only the first one would be considered a bedroom size. The other two would not be allowed. The house documents would describe it as a one bedroom with two other rooms. Here it is proudly advertised as a three bedroom property. Not the agent's fault - why blame the agent? So what if the house is described as "spacious". You can see from the listing the size of the property. I would be unhappy with a three bed house being less than 90/95sqm. But I have seen plenty from 75-90sqm and for me this is the size of an acceptable two bedroom property. Not three. It seems unfashionable here to look at the sqm size and assess the overall size from that, and preferred to read the blurb and look at the pictures only.

I think you've hit the nail of the head!

Here in the UK it all seems driven by number of bedrooms rather than overall floor space

I now go straight to the floor plans and look for overall floor space

It's very annoying when agents add in the shed as part of total floor space, yes I guess it is, but it's not actual living space

Unless you're going to sleep in your shed I suppose...

Me too, and the different per square foot prices are astonishing, from £340 per sq ft to £465 (for similarly located and decorated homes) where I am looking.

Our friends are selling their place in our local area and have decided to move into rented accommodation

However they are struggling to find anything suitable/within range of budget

They were keen on this house until they looked carefully at the floor plan

3 bedroom semi which sounded promising but overall 85 metres squared so quite tiny really

Annoying as the advert blurb describes 3 double bedrooms but when you look at the floor plan it's very obvious that the 3rd bedroom is just a box!

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/138765437#/?channel=RES_LET

This is a good example of how number of bedrooms dictates a lot in terms of advertising property and price

I have to say we really don’t feel like it’s a buyers market here. First two houses we bid on the sellers expectations of the market were too high so they withdrew from the market. The second two houses were reduced and sat on the market for months, and we were outbid on as we offered under.

In fairness none of those houses were perfect for us and came with big compromises and so it wasn’t the end of the world. But we’ve been at this for 6 months and we are just getting nowhere! We don’t want to overpay and have been bidding what we think properties are worth. It’s not working though. Expecting our buyer to pull out very soon. It’s very frustrating.

@TurquoiseDress

I actually disagree a room that 9'6 x 7 something foot is a double, although a small one.

But yes, agree with other points, we should adopt a European model that looks advertises by sq foot/metre of livable space. Interestingly, in some states in America bedrooms have to be a certain size and have a built in closet to qualify as a bedroom.

Or what about when they count the garage as part of the total floor space? I guess many people do end up converting it into a room out of necessity, but it's not living space. I never understood that. Since I we started living in the UK and looking at/purchasing property, I've always thought that people here seem to just accept what they are given because that's the norm. I'll never understand how a 4 bedroom house only has one bathroom, why the fridges are so tiny (a normal uk fridge isn't big enough for us and it's just me and my partner) and how rooms the size of a broom closet can be called bedrooms. The first time we went to visit my in-laws and my husband showed me the room he grew up in, I was shocked, it was literally smaller than my bathroom in my childhood home, which was private and only mine. I feel like that's important, but maybe I'm wrong.

It's context though, isn't it? You grew up in a different country where there are different norms. And it sounds like quite a well-off existence? England has a very different housing stock for historical reasons.

I grew up here in a house with one of these 'box rooms' as a child's bedroom and that was the norm. And one bathroom. It was fine. I never did homework in my room, just did it downstairs. And one small fridge in the kitchen . What are you storing in the fridge to need an enormous one for two people?!

It was a massive improvement on how my parents and grandparents had grown up - six children in a two bedroom house. So two double bedrooms for six children and two adults. And the grandparents didn't have a bathroom, just a tin tub used once a week. The toilet was at the end of the garden and shared with neighbouring houses... That was normal life for a lot of people and not that long ago either. So a 3 bedroom house with a small third bedroom and a bathroom inside would have been considered luxurious.

But I do think it would be sensible for EA to market houses on the basis of square metreage rather than number of bedrooms.

It’s not the worst, I saw property which floor plan includes parking slot lol it’s not that you can build a house on it, it’s an allocated parking space!

thanks for sharing.

it's a bit of both here: both bedrooms and sq footage is looked at.

You can still have a 1500 sq feet house in England with two bedrooms, box room and small bathroom upstairs, but the vendor had extended the kitchen out into the garden and created a massive open plan space.

It's not as straight forward in the UK as it sounds in Portugal (?) simply because people like to rip others off usually and pretend there's value where there isn't.

The point of the posts above were to highlight how you can be told by the EA/seller it's a three bed, when it actual fact it's a two bed with storage space. This matters if you have children who need their own room.

hahaha I see this all the time. the garden shed sq footage is added to the total 😂

this was a sweet account, thanks for sharing.

but just as you say your childhood was an upgrade on your grandparents, that's what is happening today, don't you think?

it's 2023 and the houses in the uk should meet modern standards of living especially with improved understanding of space and psychology. your school days and outside play time is completely different to the children of today. we have more crime now, education and schooling is completely different with absences and more adults working from home.

It's not ten years ago, let alone 30 years ago. times have changed.

the problem is, a lot of older folks don't want things to change and this is affecting the younger generation who want and need that change quite desperately.

that definitely sounds frustrating.

I do think what you describe sounds like a buyer's market though. If a seller is withdrawing their property, it means they are panicking... they need to re-think their retirement strategy (ha!) Or they're waiting for things to magically get better.

I believe a lot of sellers are getting clued up now that the situation is looking worse for them going forward, and there's an element of them wanting to wait it out (in denial) that the interest rates will magically fix themselves. They won't. The UK is in so much debt.

Prices have to come down further. Meanwhile, unfortunately, the sellers you have encountered want you to overpay. The decision is yours. Personally, I wouldn't.

Wishing you the best and hoping your buyers will understand! If they do withdraw though, don't worry! If you've priced reasonably, someone else will come along :)

Yes, no bathroom at all and just an outside loo would rightly be unacceptable now! So things have definitely improved!

But I don't think that extends as far as a 2+1 bedroom house being viewed as just a 2 bed with storage. There's still a lot of families in very cramped space - I remember looking for lodgings not that long ago and you'd have a family of four in a two bed flat with no outside space wanting to rent out one of the bedrooms!

A lot of 2+1 bedroom houses would be beyond the wildest dreams of some of my DD's school friends for instance. And there were several families at toddler group in one bed flats as they couldn't afford more than that.

Perfect example - thanks for posting it! That's a box room for sure.
I've seen so many three bedroom houses advertised, with the box room as 1.8 metres x 2.3 metres. LOL

I totally understand those who would be over the moon with 2+box, I totally get that.

But the point I and others are making that it's false advertising. Whether a family can or can't afford the 2+box is a different matter, but it doesn't negate that it's a false claim.

If a family are happy with the box room, absolutely go for it. But to say it is something that it isn't, is what's ludicrous.

Also, I'd like to share that I'e discussed this with a few friends and family offline, and I've noticed they'll call these houses (some live in them now) "a three bedroom", but they always add "but our third bedroom is a bit small, bit of a box room".

I think people know deep down, it's not a three bedder.

In Portugal, we have to have a document called the Caderneta Predial (which each owner can access on their page of the finance portal). This gives number of rooms, bedrooms, size of the plot, size of the "covered area" footprint, and overall size of the covered area. It also registers outbuildings and pools. If this does not agree with what is being sold, then the buyer needs to be aware that part of the property is not registered. Registering is not a quick process, and many people have been caught out by purchasing a 5 bedroom villa which turns out to be a 2 bedroom, and when they try to register it has cost them a fortune in architects and back fees.

We don't have the floor plans as you do in the UK on adverts (I love a good floor plan!), unless we show the original plans when the house was approved to build. Because we have so many apartments, it is more difficult to add random bits on. But for a villa with a 1500sqm plot, there can be all sorts of additions that are not shown on the official document (including swimming pools!) so we always advise buyers to use a lawyer.

However, there are no searches etc done. You can buy a house here using lawyers within 7 days from making the offer if no mortgage is required. The lawyer checks that the house is owned by the people who say they own it, that no money is owed (if the property is mortgaged, then it takes a little longer), that the property agrees with what the buyer has seen, and that the council has the correct habitation licences and that there is the building file and EPC within date.

One thing that causes issues here is that the rules of inheritance ensure that the children all get a part of the parents property. With so many people moving abroad to work, it can sometimes be totally impossible to sell older houses which are owned by 20 or more people. I have heard that one agent went into a hospital to get a seriously ill patient to sign a document to finalise a sale ...

wow, thanks for sharing. it sounds like a decent way of doing things and just shows how false advertising is deemed completely unacceptable to other countries, but not here in good ol' England, land of the rip everyone off wherever you can.

I understand the frustration with the floor plan... I rely on both the floor plan and square footage just because a lot of "homeowners" like to add ugly extensions and conservatories and I can figure out whether this space was well designed or not.

in the UK, people tend to add random rooms and extensions to "add value" even if they don't need it themselves. a lot of them look ugly, some are beautifully done. but most of the time, I wish they never touched the house and it doesn't always add value. e.g. conservatories with plastic roofs lol.