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

[Stepsaside]

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?

There are very few houses priced lower than ours and they aren’t selling either when I include SSTC in searches. The mortgage advisor and estate agents both say the market had stagnated because of interest rates so people aren’t looking, especially in the FTB price bracket that we are selling in. Houses slightly up the price ladder aren’t reducing at all. We have reduced our price, but the gap is widening between what we can afford. We will probably end up taking it off the market and waiting for the crash across the board.

'There are very few houses priced lower than ours and they aren’t selling either when I include SSTC in searches. The mortgage advisor and estate agents both say the market had stagnated because of interest rates so people aren’t looking, especially in the FTB price bracket that we are selling in. Houses slightly up the price ladder aren’t reducing at all. We have reduced our price, but the gap is widening between what we can afford. We will probably end up taking it off the market and waiting for the crash across the board.'

I sympathise with your position and would probably do the same if the next step up are refusing to reduce (have seen similar comments from others on here).
I disagree with your advisors though. People are looking but can only buy if prices become affordable, ie large reductions. Anything will sell at the right price. Sellers, as you know from the bracket up, are simply not listing anywhere near this price yet.

@LavaGuava The other houses aren't selling because they are also priced incorrectly. This isn't directed at you, but I've seen other posters comment that their house is the best value out of all the others on the market. Or that they can't reduce their price further because then they will be the same price as a house that is slightly smaller. But if nothing is selling at all, that means everyone needs to adjust their expectations downwards. The market may be slow "because of interest rates" but interest rates aren't going back to where they used to be, so prices need to adjust to the new reality and get to a point where they are affordable to buyers at the current rates.

A question for all the sellers - I've seen a lot of people say they can't reduce their price unless the houses they want to buy also reduce. I'm genuinely curious. Are you making offers under asking price and they're getting rejected? Are you planning to make reduced offers when you get to that stage? Or are you of the mindset that you should offer near asking price and so are waiting for sellers to reduce on Rightmove? I just wonder if there is a fear of being "cheeky" and so people begrudgingly accept lower offers on their property but then aren't comfortable making offers on their onward purchase. If we want the market to start moving we all need to get comfortable negotiating and offering what we can afford/think the property is worth, rather than just going in at asking price. Nothing is flying off the shelves so there is quite a lot of scope to negotiate.

so people aren’t looking, especially in the FTB price bracket that we are selling in.

I am sorry, but I disagree. I am looking every single day. But, I'm looking for risk avoidance, not because I'm tight, not even because I feel owners don't deserve it, but because we seriously need to pump heavy cash into pensions after buying, and I have to balance priorities sensibly.

The property I took most seriously recently was somewhat problematic (badly designed kitchen, small garden) but really quite liveable, in an area I like. It was being advertised for £500 more than when the seller bought it two years ago.

Over the last week, I've started to see more and more properties appear with far smaller gaps between what they paid and the asking price.

I can take the above property more seriously because I can already see that's lowering my risk of negative equity by probably about a 10% house price drop (this area didn't go crazy during covid - others nearby rose by 22%).

It was marked as sold within a fortnight.

What your agents should be telling you is that FTBs are looking to avoid risk, and, in my case, that means discounting silly covid price rises and looking for really good value so we don't financially cripple ourselves in retirement (we're both over 40).

Houseprices.io will tell you the true inflationary only value of your home; this is my online bible when I can't find 'sold' information.

If your buying pool is younger FTBs, you probably have to ask yourself what term mortgage the average salary earning couple would have to take out to buy it. If it's more than 30 years, that's problematic, because youngsters seem to be waking up to the horrors of being restricted with a lifetime of debt, and they're not playing ball.

If we want the market to start moving we all need to get comfortable negotiating and offering what we can afford/think the property is worth, rather than just going in at asking price. Nothing is flying off the shelves so there is quite a lot of scope to negotiate.

I am surprised that buyers are not viewing then negotiating a price they would pay, I did probably naively think this was how it worked. I thought people would view then say offer a lower price. Do people generally not do this now? should we state 'open to offers'.

@Nitgel I think it depends on who you're selling to. Most FTBs are trying to minimise risk, as @KievLoverTwo explained. But there are a lot of people trying to upsize who have only ever bought in a rising market and so think that offering asking, or over asking is the done thing. They are the type that likely get offended by offers and say "I need to sell my house for X or I can't afford my onward purchase" rather than thinking "I need to sell my house for the best price I can get and then negotiate hard on my onward purchase".

There is another thing I don't understand about the explanation that it's "just interest rates" that are the reason nothing is selling. I know it's been difficult to buy in recent years when prices were continually rising, but I would argue that this is easier to overcome than the current rate rises. In the past, FTBs could just save longer, live with family while saving to reduce costs or receive help from inheritance to put down a larger deposit. It's easier to rationalise paying one big payment upfront if the monthly payments are affordable, especially if most of the payment is going towards building equity. I have a lot of peers that viewed their deposit as the one big thing they had to save for in life and once they got on the ladder their property would be their pension/savings pot/etc.

It is much harder to increase your salary to the level needed to make higher payments each month. As we're seeing with all the people that are struggling to cope with higher payments now that their fix has ended, it's not just about saving harder. You have to be able to make those higher payments every month for the forseeable future. So the idea that it's "just interest rates" and people just need to save more/for longer is a fallacy.

South Wast here, been on the market a week and have 3 viewings booked.

We were previously on the market last summer for £50k more (10% of house price) and only had a couple of viewings in a month.

Prices have dropped a lot near us over the last year, but places are moving where sellers are willing to adapt pricing to current market situation.

There's a few houses round here that have kept their price at the same level as before and aren't budging at all

@KievLoverTwo
Houseprices.iowill tell you the true inflationary only value of your home; this is my online bible when I can't find 'sold' information.
Where is this shown on that site? The estimated value figure?

For my house that says £584,250. We listed at £480k and reduced to £450k, still have had zero interest, considering £425k this week. We bought for £322k, new kitchen about 10 years ago and had a "proper" roof put on the conservatory and have had some (but not all) artex swirly ceilings redone smooth as well as other minor works - some people might want to update of course, the boiler is old but working fine.
We could theoretically afford to sell for the 322K paid 17 years ago - or even less but would want to be sure we were getting an equivalent price deal for the destination - we haven't bothered viewing (in person) or making offers yet as there doesn't seem to be any point untiil we know what we can realistically get for this place.

I'm sure some people are doing this, yes although potential buyers will be far more discerning now than they were 2020-22.

However, there are many properties which are listed far too high which will just be viewed as totally unrealistic/ piss take prices so buyers won't even bother seeing them because their idea of a fair price might be 20 or 25% lower than asking and they know that this wouldn't be accepted so they won't waste their time.

Yeah, that's right.

Times are really bad if you need to sell for what you bought it 17 years ago, I would hate to see that happen, but I'm afraid it goes back to price per square foot in a downturn, and fancy fixtures and fittings don't really count for much anymore, unless your precise taste matches the one person who wants to buy your house. Mainly because replacing them costs £££££.

However, there are many properties which are listed far too high which will just be viewed as totally unrealistic/ piss take prices so buyers won't even bother seeing them because their idea of a fair price might be 20 or 25% lower than asking and they know that this wouldn't be accepted so they won't waste their time.

@rainingsnoring

@Nitgel

^^ exactly this.

I absolutely do not waste my time with vastly unrealistic asking prices. It doesn't help that the areas I am looking at are mostly a five hour round trip from where I live (which also happens to cause me a lot of physical pain). I can't just 'pop in and try my luck.' I also dislike wasting sellers time.

That's another thing happening: people are being pushed further and further out from their preferred areas to find affordable homes with 5-6% interest rates right now. Middlesborough and Hull were mentioned on an EA video I watched yesterday.

If your price isn't quite cheap for the area, they'll have to continue to do that -looking further afield, bypassing popular areas that are now completely unaffordable (but would have been in Spring last year).

I can see there might be an opportunity to make the move we want even in this market, but it's hard to predict whether it would be more sensible to wait until we hit the bottom of this cycle - I guess if we time it right we could delay (we have a place we could stay temporarily) buying the next place until the market bottoms out (although the point where that happens will only be a guess). The price hit on our place seems massively more than what is being reported generally though.

Probate house in my close (South East) has sold sign gone up after approx 10 days on the market. This was approx 1 month ago. Listed at £900k (3 bedroom detached) so will be very interested in what the sold price was. Very dated, needs new kitchen and bathrooms doing but nothing structural. Hubby and i thought that it would be worth approx £800k in this market. (Previously a 4 bedroom house). The vendor had no immediate family so maybe solicitor selling and therefore no family needed to agree on offers. That probably has made the difference here I.e quick sale. Think it shows that houses can and are still selling. In our village there have been really lovely houses on the market for over a year that haven’t sold. It has got to be the price.

'What your agents should be telling you is that FTBs are looking to avoid risk'

Yes but it mainly comes down to affordability imo.
Most FTB have been finding it hard to save a deposit for many, many years (except the lucky ones with access to BOMAD) and now, as @BraveToaster, the monthly costs are also simply unaffordable too. In many instances, FTB's and up-sizers have no option other than to wait. In addition, the level of confidence in the housing market and everything else has fallen, we are v likely to be in an official recession next year, unemployment has already started to rise. It's not looking v positive for most people.

We will be selling a gorgeous old house in a stunning location that that needs renovation too in the next few months. The valuations have been a little lower than they were a couple of years ago. One estate agent has suggested auctioning it as he’s had a lot of buyers messing about when it comes to property that needs renovation- coming back months down the line wanting further reductions due to materials going up in price etc. We’re not sure what we’ll do yet.

Yes, in theory but it's impossible to time these things precisely.
Prices should fall significantly more as unemployment increases but these things always vary in different areas/ different price brackets. Definitely worth researching your preferred new area carefully.
The hit on your property does seem to be multiples of what is being reported. It may just be bad luck but I think the average falls have been more than reported so far. Data is very limited and lags by many months.

We put ours up 7 weeks ago.

No viewings. Dropped the price last week. Still nothing at all.

We're in the North of England.

Lots selling in the £200-£400 bracket. Nothing up that seems to be budging.

I don't agree that buyers are 'messing about.'

They've had a quote to renovate a house and their builder or project manager has made them aware that the quote only stands for 3 months (or whatever). If the cost of the renovation increases substantially, they may have no choice but to ask the seller to reduce in order to make it financially viable.

They're also nervous of buying in a falling market, so anything that exacerbates their losses it's going to make them jittery.

@KievLoverTwo Thanks for the house prices.io website I’ve not heard of that site before. It says the estimated value of my house is 10k more than it’s up for sale for, so that’s hopeful. I wonder why that website isn’t more publicised?

Well, it's only an incy wincy site that only does one thing and doesn't try to sell you anything, so it's go no real reason to be big. It's probably just some IT nerd who probably pays a few hundred quid a year to host it because they are fed up with Zoopla's daft algorithms.

I think one of the big lenders, I can't remember which, nationwide or the other one, also have this feature, but you have to do drop downs and punch a bunch of stuff in, so it's more work for the same result. A lot more people know about this one than house prices.io, but I like the complete lack of effort on the little site.

I am sorry to say that I think your agent is trying to fob you off with the easiest method available to him.

Especially worrisome is the rise in Modern Method of Auction. If you want to read about the horrors of those, search on here for threads in the last few months.

One was also bumped today, look for iamsold.

From the EA shows I listen to, I am hearing that most properties going to auction are NOT selling.

The cynic in me thinks EAs are suggesting it because they don't want the aggravation of holding a chain together when a buyer discovers unknown issues post survey. It's happening a lot with Reno's ATM.

Once your house has failed to sell at auction your EA can easily justify 'testing the market' at a rock bottom price to you. Because they don't want to have that conversation with you right now. They don't want you to think they can't sell it for anywhere near what you think it is worth, because then they will not get your business.

Think long and hard about which path you take. If you decide to go for auction, make sure it's a traditional one.

I think you are better off pricing it deeply realistically, take OFF COVID house price rises, take off the value of the refurb at today's costs (many, many of which can be found in recent threads) and hope that buyers can see (by looking at price history, which they will) that this house is actually a bit of a bargain.

Character homes are tough sells in this market.

Yes what you’re saying is true for some buyers, but both estate agents we had our said some we’re definitely trying to milk things (and in a way good for them, everyone wants things as cheaply as they can). And I guess if you’re putting an offer in on a renovation project you need a bit of flexibility in your budget for materials at the moment, or a Reno is not the house for you. They never come in on budget even in a good market. Trust me, I’ve lived in a 300 year old Reno project for w decade!

Yes I know what you’re saying. We’re not sure which way to go yet. I’ve seen a few local farms go for much more at auction than they would have in the normal market and I’ve seen some go for less. Both have said the value is less than we expected. But they’ve both said that once a bit of work (£40-80k) is done it would be worth a lot more and it’s in a superb spot. Someone will get a lovely house. This area is very pretty and easily commutable to a major city. Lots of people have bought £300k doer uppers and ended up with thongs worth well over a million. In an ideal world we’d do the work ourselves, but we have a lot of tax to find. Tough times and tough decisions.

ps, when you said traditional auction what did you mean?

I would love to own a one million pound thong!

Normal (traditional) auction, just as expected.

Modern method of auction - seems to have been around since about 2017 but I am seeing increasing numbers on adverts. Scams the buyer, seller pays no fees, very very problematic method that people are being conned into under the guise of 'you have 56 days so you can buy at auction with a mortgage.' Almost never give the buyer the absolutely extortionate fees back when things go wrong, e.g. the seller decides to withdraw, actual sale takes 120 days, survey kicks up big issues. Not really better for the seller either, because the buyer just takes the 5% fee off what they are prepared to bid.

The one star Trustpilot reviews for the above mentioned firm make for disturbing reading.

Thong!🤣. iPhones never let you type a sentence without changing something!