Taking our house off the market. It’s too annoying.

[sellotape12]

I’m fed up of having to leave the house every Friday and Saturday, or estate agents turning up early. Or then being super loud and waking the baby from his nap. I’m fed up of having to frantically tidy with five mins notice. This whole process has made me re-fall in love with our existing house.

FYI we live in a pretty popular neighbourhood of London and have a modernised mid terrace. We’ve had 41 viewings, no offers, all feedback has been “we’re thinking about it”. Everything we look at to buy as onwards is being price-pumped to try offset the falling market. Or it looks ok then you realise it needs some renovation work and with 2 year waitlists and spiralling costs, it’s no longer a good deal to renovate.

The reason we wanted to move was a busy street but tbh the volatility of this market and lack of options has made us realise our current place has more of good thing about it. So solidarity with anyone else who’s thinking of coming off the market!

We’re having the same problem and I’m considering taking ours off the market and relisting in the spring, just so Rightmove doesn’t show it’s been on for months.

I’d love 41 viewings! We’ve been on since September and had 3. All 3 of them moaned about the lack of car parking spaces, even though the fact we’ve got a garage and one off-road space is clearly mentioned on the particulars, and although we live in a cul-de-sac there is acres of unrestricted roadside parking.

I’ve told the estate I don’t care who views it just get people through the door, but where we are no one is buying.

See this is how I feel. My house is listed in a price bracket which the type of person who wants this type of home would look at. It’s actually priced at the very low end of the range as we really need to move - an identical house round the corner is on for £50000 more! The last identical house to sell (we live on an estate so there’s lots of houses the same as ours) went for about halfway between ours and the expensive one.

We live in a small town so there’s no way someone looking at ours wouldn’t see the higher priced one on Rightmove and vice versa. We actually thought it might help us sell but apparently not! If someone views our house and likes it, they are going to make an offer or at least tell the agent it’s overpriced.

We've viewed a couple of suitable properties and one is our dream house, but it’s about £15k too expensive for what it is and the comparable houses in the area (and even the estate agent thinks it’s overpriced, but the seller insisted). When and if we are proceedable, I will offer what I’m willing to pay for that house. If they accept, great. If they don’t, we will move on. We are downsizing so luckily we aren’t stuck with needing a certain amount extra to buy our next property.

@sellotape12 - I feel your pain! We spent pretty much most of last year on the market & it wore me down. Especially with a baby & being on mat leave. We took a break & then went back on the market after 4-5 months in this year which helped a bit. Plus we found it much better working with our current agents & agreed the following with them upfront, i.e

1. we set boundaries around times for viewings - none could happen between 12-2 due to baby’s nap. It was also easier once babe was on 1 nap a day.
2. we aimed to try do a handful of open days rather than viewings here & there so that we could just clean & tidy on a few occasions. Unfortunately the reality of the market meant that didn’t work for our property but it may work for others. Our current agents always tried to double up viewings once one was booked in so that we didn’t have one each day, for example.
3. this is the hard truth of it - we did significantly drop our price a few times & our current agents were honest about this. Our first agents in 2022 put it on very high & we were forever in the same situation as you - viewings here& there for a loooong time & no offers. We dropped a few times with them but we were always behind the demand. Our current agents started it lower to generate more interest. We still had to drop a couple times from there but they tried to do this proactively when each interest rise happened earlier this year.

It’s all relative in the end as once we got an offer we then also offered under asking on our next place & that was accepted. We also thought that even if we accepted a lower offer on ours & then couldn’t find somewhere we could afford then we would just pull out anyway. fingers crossed we are exchanging soon.

wishing you all the best in whatever you decide.

I agree. No reason why you should hear what potential buyers say either, the agent should be doing the viewings. Of course buyers want to criticise your house, they want to get the price down. Let the agent deal with all this rubbish.
I would suggest though that the agent might have got the house priced too high if you've had so many viewings and no offers. The market is weaker than it was and if it's been on the market for a while you should consider this.
Did you have valuations from other agents and go with the highest?

Where we live the properties normally go under offer very quickly, often to cash buyers moving locally. But even here there is a very nice property with everything going for it which has had lots of viewings and not a single offer, despite the price being lower than the last sold property of the same type.
It's an awful time to sell, but if you can get an offer you can get a good deal on your next house, so don't give up.

Is January a peak time, I'm not sure, is it worth pausing until then and then fully taking it off the market.

I'm not a homeowner but it sounds like a nightmare. Do what you need to do.

But that is exactly what they should be doing. There is absolutely no point in viewings if they are not proceedable buyers, complete waste of time especially in this market.

One neighbour with a long chain took from April to November to complete and was very lucky that the whole thing didn't fall apart, though she did lose her favourite house in the process.
Also locally an agent recommended a buyer's offer to a seller and claimed they were a "cash buyer". The seller was in a hurry because of getting a school place where they were going and after two months it became obvious they weren't cash buyers at all but still had a place to sell. My daughter (who was a cash buyer) had made the same offer but the agent chose the other buyer over her. In the end she got the property because she could complete very quickly.

But a cash buyer could have a place to sell? Cash buyer just means you don't need a mortgage. So is still more straightforward as there's no problem with getting a mortgage approved.

A chain-free cash buyer is someone who hasn't got a mortgage and doesn't need to sell a property.

Do you show your bank balance before you walk into any shop? No way would I disclose my financial position and information until my the offer it’s accepted, until we enter some sort of agreement it is not your business. If you took property from the market without proof of funds then it’s on you. But you’re delusional to think someone will be dishing put their financials to view your house.

Your personal likes and dislikes are not buyers problem. And you have an option to not advertise your home and don’t sell it.

The seller needs to understand the buyer’s financial position in order to accept an offer though.

If you refused to discuss it I’d think you were dodgy and not accept your offer.

You can show them proof of funds without leaving the documents with them. If you’re selling an expensive house you don’t want just anyone off the street wandering round.

No idea what your last par relates to.

Same goes for buyer, I don’t want random people looking at my financials. Hence why there’s no obligation for buyers to disclose this at viewing stage.

You only need my financial position to make decision to take your property off the market. Not to view. And it will never be that way, it goes against consumer rights.

Expensive/exclusive houses are being sold privately mainly. But they’re not in the realm of reality of this forum.

No-one will accept your offer without proof on funds, so it depends how much you want to buy the house.

All of my friends sent proof of funds after the price has been agreed. So not sure which stage you class as offer accepted.

My EA didn’t show people round without proof of funds. I sold without marketing but that was three years ago.

I don’t think consumer rights apply in the same way when it comes to houses.

And I can’t see that anyone has a ‘right’ to view any house. EAs can’t discriminate when it comes to passing on a genuine offer, but sellers have every right to disallow viewings on the basis that viewers are not serious. It’s their home!

Of course you can disallow viewings. As a shop owner can disallow you in their shop too.

”Advice from the Property Ombudsman however is that financial evaluations should take place at the time an offer has been made and is being considered by the seller.” I hope this gives you an answer. Unless your house is in crazy demand, no one will show you proof of funds for a viewing. Also if my offer wouldn’t even be considered, way too low for seller expectations, there’s no point of me sending proof of funds is it?

I really don’t think that anyone viewing your home is doing it purely to be nosey and don’t understand how you have heard negative comments if you are out of the house when viewings are conducted. You seem to be offended by negative comments and feedback. Please bear in mind that online viewings are not the same as actual in person viewings. When viewing in person you get a better feel for a property and are able to see things that aren’t apparent online. Having said that prospective buyers must know, from online images, whether or not a property has a wood burning stove and a kitchen that is to their liking and estate agents should give you twenty fours notice of any viewing requests.
As someone who is currently house hunting, I know just how misleading estate agents descriptions and photographs can be, also many properties are massively overpriced given the current market. The value of a house is not determined by how much sellers want to spend on their next purchase.

January isn’t a peak time though it’s better than November or December.

Peak time is Spring.

I don't know, cash buyer for me has always meant "money in the bank, no related sale."

A cash buyer who has to sell a house isn't really a cash buyer in the true sense.

Yes sometimes we’re being encouraged to view properties without given any details. I think this is just EA tactics to make it look like there’s a lot of interest.

I.e. we are looking for conversions with a lot of period details and not overmodernised to blank walls and spot lights. So some EAs claim that property is definitely for us, and when we turn up it appears that that the property has one/two detail’s randomly left next to the entry door, but the rest is throughout. So of course we will say, we don’t like this renovation that they’ve done, since we’ve never had details provided. Same goes for size, I force agents to tell me sq.ft., otherwise I turn up just to discover that someone managed to squeeze 3/4 bedrooms into 800 sq.ft property.

Blame your EAs people! Majority of us don’t have any appetite to interrupt our weekends for meaningless viewings.

Ugh I feel for you! Getting your house ready for viewings when you have kids is hell. If you do decide to go back on the market at any point, definitely don't be there for viewings (we have no idea what the person we sold to even looks like) and try and do it in the Spring. My parents are trying to sell at the moment but have just decided to take a break until April.