Sold houses stats on gov.uk

[EarthSight]

Has anyone checked this out recently? I appreciate that it doesn't tell you everything important, like the amount of properties that were listed compared to those sold or how much the house sold for compared to the original listing price, but the selling stats are stark. Here's an analysis I did on one particular area in Wales based on houses sold between 1st of March - mid September, so around 6 months.

2020 - 12 houses sold
2021 - 58 houses sold
2022 - 48 houses sold
2023 - 10 houses sold

This really doesn't match up with what sellers seem to expect, which is to carry on listing houses at prices which suggest they still think it's the boom days of the pandemic.

Yes, it is strange how some sellers keep deluding themselves when there are apps like PropertyLog and all these stats easily available online now?

But those particular stats don’t tell you anything. You need to know a lot more before you start drawing conclusions about how deluded or not sellers may be.

The number of houses sold is meaningless.
i would be surprised at sustained high levels of sales- most of the population don’t move frequently so eventually movement will drop after a significant high degree of sales. In addition it doesn’t tell you the proportion of sales compared to the number of advertised properties nor the price achieved for a similar type. Price per square meter/foot can be useful to compare.

The problem is that because the land registry sold prices take 6 to 9 months to be published people really have no guage as to what actual sold prices are for such a long time. Some industry commentators say actual transaction prices have already fallen more than 10% and that won't be reported properly until June next year ! It's very risky to buy at the moment imo

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/house-price-drop-worse-feared-121617054.html

Better to wait until house prices start rising again so you think @DrySherry ?

Well that very much depends on individual circumstances doesn't it. If you have to buy now, you have to buy - but do so in the knowledge that current asking prices and actual sold prices are diverging considerably. You won't have the actual figures for actual achieved prices for an uncomfortably long period of time. That means if your not very careful and negotiate hard you run the risk of overpaying.
My point really is that next June, once we get the land registry prices for current sales, new sellers are going to have to be more realistic about achievable values. Add to that the fact that those numbers will also further scare buyers. It's difficult to see that that wouldn't result in further drops.
Your point about waiting until prices are rising is right, but again, also runs in to the same issue - in that without accurate data for such a long period you can't be easily confident that that is what's happening. The system is archaic and needs a complete restructure.
We may well have falling prices for a prolonged period so for how long do you put your life on hold ? No easy answer is there.

No easy answers and in reality I think most property buyers are unwilling or unable to put their lives on hold indefinitely.

Property prices probably do still have some way to fall but no one can predict exactly when they will start to rise again. It could be 2024 could be 2025 could be later. If I was looking to move house soon I would feel reasonably confident buying in 2024. Knowing that I definitely wasn’t buying at the top of the market and neither had I missed the window before demand picks up again. I agree that house prices falling & rising will both be affected by the lag in accurate data.

@DrySherry Thanks I did wonder about the gap.

That means if your not very careful and negotiate hard you run the risk of overpaying

I've seen a case recently where I think some buyers massively overpaid for their house. They got themselves a substantial discount, (as the original asking price was just utterly ridiculous) but they still over overpaid anyway by around 20-30k at least in my estimate. They're not from the area. If they were to try and sell in the next year or two at the price they bought the house for, I actually don't think they'd be able to.

I made a reasonable offer recently based on what I think a house is actually worth. Speaking to the neighbours, the house has hardly had any interest in it, and I believe them (it's not great, has a strange layout, but will do for me). I also have a great buying position, being able to progress swiftly with a sale. I'm not going to offer what the seller wants as I believe that would put me in real danger of negative equity if I needed to sell in the next year or two, and I'm taking a risk by buying at all at the moment. The house also needs a bit of work on it in terms of updating. My offer was rejected.

I don't think this is unusual - there are many houses that have been sitting on the market for months (like the one I made an offer on), which still haven't sold because the sellers are unwilling to face the reality of today's housing market and instead expect buyers to put themselves at high risk of negative equity.

I can kind of tell how deluded they are by how long their property has been on the market for. The amount that their want in a lot of cases just doesn't align with demand.

it’s no good feeling all this hostility to sellers. It will just raise your blood pressure.

Sellers are just people, trying to get the best possible price for their home. And why shouldn’t they? They don’t owe you anything, and if their house doesn’t sell at the price they’re asking, then it doesn’t and they will have to work out what to do about that. No one’s asking you to take a risk. Indeed, if your mortgage provider thought there was a danger of your going into negative equity they would let you take that risk, because it would be their risk.

Tbh, from some of what I’ve read on here, a number of buyers have deluded themselves into the belief that ‘a buyer’s market’ means that all sellers are desperate to sell at any price and should accept whatever offer is made to them. And that any house that they can’t afford is overpriced. It doesn’t work like that.

@NewFriendlyLadybird

if your mortgage provider thought there was a danger of your going into negative equity they would let you take that risk, because it would be their risk

The mortgage provider interested in claiming back the value of what they lent you......as far as I'm aware. So if the house is 150k and they lend you 100k, and they are satisfied they can sell the house for at least 100k to get back their amount....then that's all that matters to them, isn't it? But what if you put in a deposit of 50k, but can only now sell the house for 120k? The bank gets back the amount they lent you....great....but what about the rest?

No of course sellers aren't going to accept any offer. They can simply sit tight or put it back on the market at a different time. It does depend on the area, but if houses are sitting on the market for months....it does suggest that there simply isn't the demand locally to sell a house at that price, not in the time-frame that most people would wish anyway.

Negative equity is when the house is worth less than the loan against it, NOT when it’s worth less than you paid for it.

You’re right: the bank only cares about getting its own money back. If you make a loss on it, that’s your hard luck.

However, you only really need to worry about making a loss if you are planning to sell again very quickly. In an uncertain market, I would say that you’re better off renting if you only want to stay for about two years. Longer term , a combination of a stabilising market which is likely to start to rise again — albeit slowly — and the fact that you will be gaining equity by paying down the mortgage should make it an altogether less risky proposition.

Re: deluded. The other half keeps reminding me that most people will probably only move home once every ten years or so. Idk if they are deluded or poorly informed. If I had an asset I thought had gone up in value over ten years I probably wouldn't be all over mumsnet, the trade press and digging into the data the press releases (which does NOT show the full picture) to see exactly how much my home is worth at any given point in time. I'd probably be pretty clueless and just take what Zoopla says as red.

Added to that, most estate agents selling now will have never seen a market like this before. They aren't quite grasping how rapidly things are falling, and until we see land registry data to the contrary, also won't believe it.

Tools like Zoopla are honestly really dangerous in making people think their house is worth far, far more than it actually is. Yeah, of course you have to do due diligence but for a lot of people, they're getting a shock when they discover their house is worth 30% less than Zoopla reckons, because they've already planned their onward purchase on the figure it says it's worth. Simply because it's the most accessible tool that everyone has easy access to.

I had a flit through my messenger messages with the other half from back in May this morning; of about 30 or so properties, 70% ish have been withdrawn from the market.

It's going to take a long time for sellers to acclimatise themselves to what's going on in both the housing market and the economy because whatever we see in the press is never, ever the full picture. They almost never explain the nuances of house price falls. They hardly ever explain that the ONS figures released for September will have been for prices agreed in February, that deprived areas are getting hit hardest the fastest and prices are plumetting, that houses with terrible EPCs are all of a sudden becoming increasingly hard to sell (when, in previous years they would command a premium for being 'character' properties, that don't have an infinite supply). Then you get headlines like 'house prices grew 0.3% in July' and they think it's all going to be okay, because nobody bothers to explain that the reason house prices have grown is because people with really expensive properties are selling up in huge numbers, and that skews the data.

It's what the press LEAVE OUT of their reporting that's causing the biggest problems.

Small wonder sellers are absolutely blindsided when they come to sell.

Couldn't agree more with your post @KievLoverTwo Hence, delusion. Personally, if someone is a buyer who can afford to sit it out, I would do that. Many sellers are sitting on this too but for different reasons. These sellers actually think in two years things will get better. I'm not sure what they're basing this on though? What they don't realise, it's actually going to negatively impact them the most. Not buyers.

I think the next two years and more will actually be harder for everyone, but if someone is trying to sell their house they are going to get a real shock. it's already a buyer's market and will be more so going forward. Currently, it is cheaper to rent even though the rental market has been pretty grim. But for the good buyers, they can afford it. Most people I know work remotely too. People who are struggling with rent aren't necessarily the ones who can buy a house right now. Flats maybe, but not the overpriced houses. The media reports anything to grab our attention, it's not really fact or even accurate. It's just a story they are trying to sell based on whatever emotion they're trying to stir.

You only need to look around at how bad things are in the UK. The same is happening globally, Singapore, China!! and even USA. House prices are going for less than the sellers put up for. Buyers aren't interested in getting into negative equity. I wouldn't be surprised if the average prices were actually 10% lower as @DrySherry has posted above.

And I can see clearly around me in the areas and my old "hometown" in London is depreciating. Sellers who are friends are deluded too and shocked that their house isn't selling. They want to believe whatever they want to.

I don't think prices will go up again in 1-2 years either lol, as someone has posted above. This is the new era. We had cheap debt for over a decade, and now it's the era of high inflation and higher interest rates. I'm not sure where this whole "this will only last a year or two" assumption even comes from?? The economy is bad right now, unemployment has gone up, interest rates are still very high despite the media reporting a crappy 0.2% drop here and there. Core inflation is still crappy.

Hard times are going to get harder.

@whyisitallsohard On a few occasions I've seen cases where buyers have really overpaid at the height of the pandemic madness and are now trying to pass on their mistake to another poor ignorant buyer by slapping on an extra 20 - 30k on it, instead of just selling it close to the price they bought it for and being done with it. Oh well. They might be waiting for a sale for quite some time.

Most property buyers buying with a mortgage wont have the choice, they wont be able to afford the monthly payments (or won`t want the debt at that price) so most will wait for house prices to fall to levels where the mortgage is affordable IMO.

With the days of zero rates gone Im not sure what drives the housing market to "start rising again" cant really see that happening TBH, if rates stay at even these levels house prices will need to fall by a LOT for there to be a functioning market again.