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

[wheretolivehelp]

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!

And, I think there should be some capital released. We would be moving from a high value area to a slightly lower value area.

Yes - ie has continued to be stagnant but with attractive properties selling quickly. I don’t think much is selling at all. In the town I’ve just moved from, there are about 100 properties online on RM and about 70 of those unsold, the majority of which have been available for several months. It feels like if you’re not fortunate or clever enough to have marketed at a realistic price and in possession of an attractive house in very good condition, you don’t sell and then get stuck for months.

I've just had a laugh having sold my home of 30+ years that it was in one of the most up and coming towns in the UK - source BBC story yesterday. It does seem I've really bucked the trend having sold my doer upper for the asking price to the first viewer.
I'm the first to appreciate I've been very fortunate compared with the general situation. It hasn't all been wine and roses, my buyers insisted on a change to the Land Registry which took 3 months. So despite selling in July 23 we didn't complete til Feb this year. And my onward purchase is now dragging and my life is in storage until one of the owners pulls their fingers out - and they can't be bothered to.
Generally speaking in this neck of the woods quite a few of the other houses we viewed don't seem to have sold but are no longer on the market. There hasn't seemed to be the usual increase in property going on the market at this time of year either.

My son got the keys to his house in feb
made his offer in May
so it took 9-10 months
but all the houses that he looked at ( and it wasn’t many 5 or 6 are still on the market and the prices have dropped from 325 to as low as 300k

my friend is selling her house. it's been months! Like 6 months on the market and she's reduced a little - twice. It's had viewing (nice house still) but she doesn't get it that buyers today (like me) are not putting up with a mediocre (aka "normal") house for a huge price. She extended to the loft. It's not that big, but a decent double, small shower-toilet-sink up there. A lot of space taken up by eaves. She thinks this makes it "worth more". It's a bedroom in the attic! I personally don't find it appealing. I'm a buyer and i've tried to be nice about it since she is getting frustrated that she can't go get a bigger house until her is sold. But.. If I'm not buying mediocre and I feel I could put my savings/deposit in other (better) investments, I think other buyers have figured that out too. My theory is, she won't "get it" even though she is a millenial herself because her parents gave her the deposit to the house she is now selling. it's generational stupidity and I mean that in the nicest way. how could she know when she's never had to think about "value" and "worth". she has had deposits and all sorts handed to her on a plate. It's very telling since she put her house up for sale and I've seen a different, greedier side to her. entitled even. It's why i think 'bank of mum and dad' benefiters should pay more interest on their mortgage.

I’ve just put an offer on a property. 2 bed flat in Balham. The sellers have accepted a price which is 12% below asking and 6% below what they paid for it in 2017.

We have no idea what you should pay for this house, we don’t even know what town it’s in so how can we know what comparable 5 beds have sold for recently? Saying the area is “just outside Cambridge “ isn’t specific enough. Cambridge itself is famously expensive, surrounding towns & villages much less so.

If this house is in Histon, that is a small place probably no one has heard of apart from you as you are looking to buy around Cambridge. You will need to do your own market research. Look on Rightmove sold prices and see what comparable houses have sold for in the last few months. View other properties too so to get really good understanding of what represents good value for 800k in your area, or whatever your budget is.

@Mialay this is not the thread for your question. You need to create your own thread for that

The trouble is if you look on these property threads you will see people shocked that a detached house could cost over 300k as “that’s what they cost in our town” in the North and others who would guess well over a million as they are used to prices around London.
At least now we know it’s Huntingdon you MIGHT get someone who knows that area but we’ll see. It’s true that new builds tend to be overpriced but this is not a new build anymore so won’t be worth as much as comparable 5 bed new builds currently for sale in Huntingdon.
You can look up what it sold for and what has happened generally in that area since the year it sold. But also take into account that new builds tend to depreciate over the first few years even in a better market because of losing the “new” factor.

I’m seeing this a lot more. I’ve noticed where my partner grew up (nice Surrey town), a few neighbours sold and the price is the same as from 2016 sold prices.

Yes that’s a good suggestion as you would get more answers that way @Mialay

Interesting that this is the first comment in September 2023 and now it’s mid-March 2024 and nothing has changed. I remember a lot of people saying “wait for the September bounce”, then “wait for New years bounce”, then “wait for the spring bounce”. 😒

this IS the market. It might not be an obvious crash in prices, but there’s definitely some form of a crash! The market is not moving!

nonsense reports today as well about Asking houses prices have increased lol. Well of course rightmove report “asking” prices 🤭 because they need traffic, estate agents need false stats to lure anyone and get sellers to sign contracts . But we all know the reality. The market has been crickets!

It’s a stagnant market for sure apart from certain small pockets of the country

I have to say there is some sign of the market moving in London. I have spent the last 8 months or so pouring over flats that were going nowhere in Battersea, Wandsworth and Balham- watching the asking prices dropping. Then a couple went under offer. So 2 weeks ago on a Tuesday I phoned up to arrange see 5 flats on Saturday - only one was a new listing, the others were at least 6 months old. One had gone under offer that day. Of the other 4, another went under offer on Thursday, and one was taken off the market to return to rental. Then I saw 2 and offered on one. So that was at least 5 offers in total of flats I had been watching for ages over the space of just over a week.

Lots of offers, and we are officially under offer again now. We’ve had some v low offers, with lots of people kind of expecting us to fund their desired remodelling of the interior. But we also had enough to confirm what the actual market value was, which is what we’ve accepted.

Very pragmatic and sensible @NewFriendlyLadybird

Many Buyers are unrealistic ( as are many Sellers) but I’m glad you are satisfied that you found the current market value & can move forward.

We bought this time last year - prices around here have gone up since then going by what was being asked then and now on Rightmove (and that's WITH this street being flooded quite badly over the winter - never flooded before in living memory and we got off unscathed because we're on a slight uphill bump in the road).

We possibly overpaid slightly for this place - but it was a vendor who was quite happy to sit out the market until she got the price she wanted, and we didn't want to prat around with things and knew we might take a bit of time to sell - so we went in at asking price with the proviso that it might take us the time to sell and she was happy to wait it out (and absolutely lovely in terms of offering to leave things like wardrobes which fitted spaces well for no extra) - going on online valuations, it's now showing as ever so slightly above what we paid.

Stuff seems to go onto sold boards quite quickly around here though generally - not that many 4 bed+ size houses come onto the market in the adjoining more posh area, so people tend to jump ever so slightly over the boundary into this area for the huge period homes (4, 5 and 6 bed ones around here with large gardens). Our slight boom is also helped by HS2 being cancelled as this area was in the path of it and that had helped suppress prices I think (we were fairly confident it was going to be officially cancelled when we bought this but the confirmation came through after that). Market's a bit quirky around here because of that factor and a boom in families from Hong Kong wanting to relocate to the area.

I think some of that is because they got reduced enough to spark interest and at a price people feel they're worth. A lot of the stagnant market is due to overpriced houses and buyers know they can wait it out a bit. I've personally been called about two houses I looked at at the beginning of the year to say they've been reduced "in case you wanted to do another viewing".

"and 6% below what they paid for it in 2017."

Very positive, hopefully this trend continues.

" where my partner grew up (nice Surrey town), a few neighbours sold and the price is the same as from 2016 sold prices."

Excellent news.

"I remember a lot of people saying “wait for the September bounce”, then “wait for New years bounce”, then “wait for the spring bounce”. 😒"

Yep, there will be no bounce until prices fall to match interest rates.

I'm a FTB looking to make purchase, made two offers recently, both marketed as 'offers in region of' first i offered the offers in region of figure, and they went with higher offer, second i offered the offers in region figure but they declined offer as they want 10k over offers in region price. It's frustrating as i filter on right move for the upper limit, and generally dismiss overs in excess of, i didn't realise offers in region of meant they wanted well over. These are basic 2 bed terraced houses, that haven't had much internal change since sellers initially bought 3-4 years ago but seen to be wanting 30-40% greater than initial purchase.

I would say you've had a lucky escape. A 30-40% uplift in 3-4 years with no significant work being done is ridiculous.