If you’re selling, what is the market like around you?

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We’re in South Wales, selling a probate property that needs a full modernisation.
The house is a large 4 bed detached with beautiful views over the coast. It’s got loads of potential and it would make an amazing family home.
The estate agent advised on pricing but disappointingly we’ve had only one viewing since it was listed 3 weeks ago.
When do you think about dropping the price? Is it early days yet?

We aren’t selling but we are south wales (valleys), and houses in our town are definitely still selling. I think anything requiring a lot of modernisation is going to have more limited appeal right now. It’s no secret that getting tradespeople in is beyond difficult, and the costs are skyrocketing. Our elderly next door neighbour passed away a couple of months ago and his children have decided not to sell for the foreseeable. That said, I wouldn’t lower your price just yet. It may just take a bit longer for the right person to find it. People are still moving over to Wales in droves from Bristol for the affordable property!

Thanks! That’s reassuring. It’s close to the M4 and beach / town for amenities but a few minutes drive and you’re in the woods, countryside etc. 20 minutes from the Gower.
It’s a lovely community and I just know it’ll make a lovely family home once modernised.
We don’t want to have to drop the price, we feel it’s priced correctly but clearly it’s the fact it needs modernisation is not appealing to people. We’ll sit tight, we’re in no rush and I’m sure it’ll sell eventually.

Not in your area but listed house 26/9, have dropped price £30k and not so much as a nibble. Lots of other houses for sale locally, none selling.
I think we may try one more drop then give up. We used the asking price suggested by the agent and didn't prompt them so we are trying to be realistic, but the plan is to relocate to a more expensive area so if we can't get a decent price, we can't afford to move - don't want to sell at bargain basement price and have to pay top prices at destination so may have to shelve the plan. Considering renting out the house instead but not sure what to do with all our stuff.

Same as you, probate property on market 2 weeks 1 viewing. Close to london, 20 mins on mainline. It needs updating but has scope ho extend. It's just dead atm.

Norfolk here, had three views in three months! Not in an any rush to sell so not gifting it to anyone chancing their luck with a silly offer. Price is pitched at a considerable chunk lower than it would have sold for a year ago, so I’m holding my nerve.

We are South Wales too. We have dropped the price by 10% and to less than what we realistically need. The houses priced the same as ours are either in much worse condition or much smaller, so we know we are priced realistically. Been on the market almost 2 months. Not a single viewing.

I'm putting my house on the market now, it hasn't hit rightmove yet so v.v. early days.

I don't understand why you all are saying a house with no interest is still priced correctly? If my house isn't getting any viewings or even queries, what else could I change but the price? From a buyer's perspective, any house that's been sat on rightmove for months on end is either overpriced or something is wrong with it - so, overpriced. There's really no other reason for a house not selling surely.

We’re waiting to exchange in Devon and moving ‘up North’. We’ve been trying to find something for ages so we’ve been looking hard at the market. Properties that need a lot of work, in the place we’re moving to, have just not sold. I suspect it’s because renovations/ extensions are so expensive at the moment. The house that we’re buying has just been done up and we had to fight to get it - over 20 people in the first week had made appointments before we managed to get it. So I do wonder if people are put off big time by the price of materials and labour at the moment ?

Llyods reported today that they expect prices to keep dropping this year and ALL of next year. There's been a lot of news like that recently - it makes people find ways to wait if they are either new market entrants, or looking to move up the ladder.
The "why buy today what will be cheaper tomorrow" mindset is taking hold and may be with us for a while I think. If you need to sell over the next couple of years your going to have to price carefully.

Similar here (Yorkshire) except lower priced 2-3 beds under 200k are still moving. Ours has been on 6 weeks. Plenty of viewings but no offers, in part because others need to sell first. We picked the lowest price point from the range suggested by the two different estate agents who valued it, largely because it does need some tidying up and decorating but If it’s not shifting post- Xmas ‘break’, we’ll take it off and get the work done and relist at a later date at hopefully a better price. We aren’t in a hurry which is a privileged position to be in I guess. There is still a housing shortage in this area so it’s likely to bounce back.

Lower your price. It will sell.

I've got my eye on three different areas and prices are reducing in all of them. Houses are sticking around for a long time before being reduced, sometimes several times, or selling and then coming back on at a lower price as the chain collapsed.

Every now and then a house comes on in great condition and realistically priced, like noticeably lower than you might expect, and they sell within a couple of weeks. I think those sellers are sensible because they're getting ahead of the market instead of chasing it down.

The cost of renovating right now is very high. Whenever I look at a project, and work out how much it would cost to bring it modestly up to scratch, it is too expensive. I would end up with a house worth a lot less than I spent on it.

In your shoes I'd work out what the house would be worth fully renovated and deduct the cost of renovating it, and get it sold before prices come down even more. Then you won't have maintenance costs and can have the money working for you in the bank.

Does it look bad to lower the price a couple of weeks after listing

No it doesn't look bad. It shows that you are a motivated seller. The houses that stick around for a long long on the market and then drop the price much later show that the seller is more reluctant to sell or doesn't have to sell so they wont settle for a lower price.

It looks like you've priced your house too high in the first place imo.

it's really hard to work out what to price at, we're advised by the estate agent of course but it's really hard to work out what to market at.

Houses are sticking around for a long time before being reduced

My house is on the market and I haven't reduced it because the market is so completely dead by me I can't see the point. I'd be in exactly the same place if I increased the price - ha!

Nothing near me is moving at any price so think I might just come off until Spring now (and obviously at a reduced price!)

@Nitgel, As a previous poster mentioned, it looks like you're a motivated seller who understands the market is changing.

I'm baffled by the language some sellers are using, like they've already "given their buyer a discount" so won't be negotiating further after a survey, or they're not going to sell their house at "a bargain price". Buying a house isn't like going into a shop and buying a dress where something might be on sale for a short time. The correct value of your house is whatever someone offers for it. If you have to reduce by 10% or you get an offer under asking you are not selling at a discount. Your house was not worth the original amount.

There is actually an EA in the area I'm looking to buy that has been reducing prices and then writing in the advert "5% off for a limited time". And of course the houses are all still for sale at the reduced price long after the "limited time offer" has ended.

Pop a link in if you want suggestions.

Agreed w PP, a reduction after a few weeks is fine, shows you are motivated. But it has to be a meaningful drop. If you are dropping a 600k house by 5k, I will roll my eyes at you. If you drop it by 30k, you will be taken more seriously.

or they're not going to sell their house at "a bargain price"
That's fair enough - but it just seems every single time I want to buy anything I have to pay a premium price and every time I want to sell it is suddenly worthless. In order to sell at a price where my house had gained little or no value in absolute terms and actually reduced in real terms in 16 years of occupancy, I'd want to be sure I was getting a similar deal on the next house so I'm not going backwards the whole time.

'The correct value of your house is whatever someone offers for it. If you have to reduce by 10% or you get an offer under asking you are not selling at a discount. Your house was not worth the original amount.'

Exactly this.

There are several deluded comments from potential sellers on this thread which show why the market is 'dead' in some areas. Eg.
'We don’t want to have to drop the price, we feel it’s priced correctly but clearly it’s the fact it needs modernisation is not appealing to people.' Don't you understand why it isn't 'appealing' to buyers? It's precisely because of the cost of the modernisation on top of the asking price you have chosen.

'Not in an any rush to sell so not gifting it to anyone chancing their luck with a silly offer'.
You wouldn't be 'gifting' your house to anyone. If you had only one offer at say, 15% of asking price, that is the current market value. It is the value that you have in your head which is 'silly'.

'The houses priced the same as ours are either in much worse condition or much smaller, so we know we are priced realistically. Been on the market almost 2 months. Not a single viewing.'
If you have not had even one viewing, it is not priced realistically! Something priced realistically would have had multiple viewings and also offers.

I can see that it is very difficult, psychologically, to get one's head around the fact that the market has fallen and continues to fall. I'm sure many sellers will take their house off the market and wait for years, some will re-list in Spring, hoping for a 'Spring bounce' but some will need to sell and those will make the market.

i have dropped by 25k and see what happens. as it's probate I am acting on behalf of four of us so am somewhat guided by them at this point, otherwise I would link for more advice.

it's such a hard process but I just want the place sold really.

I know the area you are talking about and I'd say it will probably be mortgage repayment costs of your house plus as PP mentioned, it needing modernisation and tradespeople being really hard to get to do work and materials being expensive. A lot of people I know are staying put and making do with kids sharing rooms etc as the next mortgage jump up for that extra room just isn't worth it. Your specific location will matter hugely too- You may not want to share a link/ the area but for eg a 4 bed house in Sketty with sea views is going to have a lot more interest than a 4 bed house in Townhill with sea views.

Good luck! It sounds as if you are trying to be realistic. I agree that selling now, with whatever reduction, is likely to be smarter than dragging things out for another year, which a lot of people seem to be choosing to do.

Probate is tricky.

I have looked at a lot of probate properties, mainly because I get a lot of lower body pain, so a bungalow seems sensible.

What I have found is a lot of them start off at deeply unrealistic prices, drop after a while, then do a slow bleed price drop.

Those are the ones who will suffer with the final sale amount. It says 'stubborn/unrealistic seller' and / or something wrong with it. And a lot of the time there is something wrong with it.

I think estate agents and probably people selling probate properties are quite out of touch with current refurb prices.

If you take a standard bungalow that your folks may have lived in for twenty years, I don't just consider new kitchens and bathrooms and carpets when I think about my expenditure. I assume the electrics all need updating, that the double glazing is probably on its last legs, the boiler and the whole central heating system may not have been maintained, and so forth. Usually I Iook at these properties and assume a spend of 40-60k for a 900 sq ft home.

More often than not, if they are advertised at below going rate for a well maintained and updated property, it's only to the tune of 10-20k.

It's just not enough. You have to beg, borrow and steal to get tradesmen to work for you these days, so there is also an immense amount of stress involved in buying such a home.

Added to that, the value will probably fall 10-15-20% over the next 2-3 years.

When you add up both the financial and emotional cost, it is a lot.

So, probates really have to be bargain basement bargains to be attractive - apologies for a lack of prettier way to say this.

A 25k drop is a good start, but keep an eye on the competition and make sure the home you are selling is always better value than those around you.