Anyone else had viewings today?

[Chanel05]

I had 4 viewings today.

First time buyer, couple that have sold to a first time buyer, a first time buyer and a couple that aren't yet back on the market but they had sold and their sale had fallen through.

Anyone else had viewings today? How did they go?

I'm sure you are right that there will be some who can afford current prices but simply don't see the prices as value for money or are worried about negative equity so refuse to pay them and are waiting for more falls. Most just can't afford them, hence the lack of buyers.
I know some think that interest rates falling a bit this year will cause prices to rise but I think they are totally wrong. Mortgage rates have already fallen 1.5% or so and prices have fallen in the last months. If rates fall dramatically, it will only be because of serious economic problems which will have a negative effect on (real) house prices.
Anyway, good luck with your sale.

One of our scheduled viewings cancelled on the weekend - saying they “wanted to reschedule”….but no word from them since unsurprisingly. The other one gave positive feedback but again no news. It’s just soul destroying!

if you know you like somewhere, surely you offer straightaway, no? My husband says any of our viewings could offer in the future but I feel they would have done so immediately if they were sure

We've dropped our price by £10k today. Our EA says the market hasn't bounced back like they thought it would but it could just be EA talk. Who knows?

£260 is our very lowest price and that's pushing it really, would have to dip into savings for fees.

If it doesn't sell at that we will just take it off the market and wait.

Buyers are taking their sweet time, they know it’s a buyers market. The days of having to get your offer in within 5 minutes of viewing are gone in my area, that’s for sure. We were able to view the house we want without even having spoken to an agent about listing ours, that would’ve been inconceivable a couple of years ago.

I think we’ll be dropping our price soon too by about 5% to get it down a bracket. I don’t mind doing this as long as I get a lower offer in on the other side. We have plenty of equity and are not pushing ourselves on the next property.

I work in high value sales for a living, but I could not be an estate agent. I deal with scientists who make rational decisions. House viewers get fixated on some of the most random things, all of which are there in the property description online. And why look at a bloody terraced house if you want a bungalow and struggle on the stairs?! And if you’ve got an 8m long van look at houses with a driveway, not villages with roads built before cars existed and all the parking woes that go with that! Jeez.

"Of course any house would sell if you put it on low enough. But that's not the same as saying any house that doesn't sell within a month is overpriced."

There's a small but vocal contingent on the property/DIY board who just say everything is overpriced, over and over again. It's like a mantra. You can have two identical houses for sale at the same price, the one next door to you will go in 48 hours, yours won't but because you're the one posting MN, you're the one who's overpriced, not priced for market or whatever you want to call it.

I think it's always harder as well when your house is one of many fairly "identical" ones on the market that people can pick from and there are more houses than buyers. In that situation it can be something really quite minor that makes a buyer choose one over the other - and it's not that one's over-priced or actually worse than the other, it's just someone really likes the wallpaper in Bedroom 2 of one house, or some such.

Good luck to those dropping their prices, hopefully it gets you those offers! We'll likely be doing the same next week.

We could drop quite a bit and since we're looking at a new build they do offer incentives that mean we don't need as much cash for the actual move/deposit/stamp duty. It's our forever home (touch wood) so ultimately "spending" some of our current equity via a price reduction in order to obtain it isn't the end of the world. It's just depressing almost resetting the clock and losing some of the benefit that getting on the ladder was meant to give us!

Yes, it’s frustrating! One went on the market a few days before ours and was sold the first weekend. I’m 99% sure one of our first weekend viewers viewed both and chose theirs. Theirs was more blank canvas, both in a positive and negative sense (neutral decor, but no improvements since purchase). Whereas ours is more likely to need redecorating (but only easy things like paint) but has quite a few upgrades. You can’t predict what buyers will value!

Agree and it’s not always logical what they say but they do repeat it continuously & shout down anyone who dares hold a different opinion. I hope buyers & sellers on Mumsnet don’t take them too seriously. Because while we all (I think) agree that the market is stagnant or falling in most areas, it can’t possibly be the case that ALL properties are overpriced or that the market will never recover which I’ve heard them say 🙄

@Twiglets1 thank you for always being a reasonable voice on here!

Aw thank you 🙏🏻

I don't think anyone has made that comment when houses have only been on the market for a month.
Anyone who looks at the property board fairly regularly will have seen thread after thread in the last year started by posters who are struggling to sell. They have usually been on the market at least 3-4 months (there was one the other day who had been marketing for 2 years) and had hardly any viewings and no offers. In these circumstances, ie the ones being discussed, at least 9 times out of 10 will be over priced. That's how the market works unless there is some glaring negative factor. Sure, many posters get upset because they have a figure in their head or they fear house prices falling because they feel that they will lose money. Sometimes these posters lash out at people pointing out these facts.

@rainingsnoring “I don't think anyone has made that comment when houses have only been on the market for a month.”

I've said in several previous comments that our house has been on the market for less than three weeks, but you still replied to me yesterday saying "You may think that you have taken the market into account but, if you haven't had interest, then you have been mistaken about the state of the market". What did you mean by that, if you weren't trying to say my house is overpriced?

I guess you didn't read the thread fully before posting, which is a shame when it's one where people are clearly updating on their situation regularly and there’s important context in past comments.

@BarbaricPeach that's a fair comment as I haven't read the thread fully and don't know exactly how long everyone's houses have been on the market for.

I would say that, in the great majority of cases, peak interest tends to be in the first couple of weeks of marketing. If a seller (not necessarily yourself) isn't getting any interest during this peak period, they probably have been mistaken about the state of the market. If they are getting lots of viewings but no offers in the first month, it would definitely be worth giving the listing more time. This might not be the case if you are selling something really unusual or niche on gumtree but for a typical 3 bed semi or a car, something very commonly in demand, it would stand in general.
If we were dealing with a rising market, as has been the case in many years in the last few decades, a seller was often successful in time as the market caught up with their (initially excessive) price. However, in a falling market, this becomes much less likely and is more likely to result in disappointment. If you (you plural to save misunderstanding!) are upsizing, you may accept a lower offer but then negotiate more off your onward purchase and be in a better position still. Obviously, it tends to be less good for downsizers but you could argue that they have already gained in several ways over previous years.

Glad you've addressed that @BarbaricPeach as I think @rainingsnoring simply proved my point "Sometimes these posters lash out at people pointing out these facts." - not sure what that comment is about.

Anyway, @BarbaricPeach I think I'm in a similar position to you, we were on last year, hardly any viewings, reduced from £450k to £475k and went back on last week; this is our 3rd agent (I've posted elsewhere about the agent). Had 2 viewings first weekend, now radio silence from the agent. We are one of 3 three bed semis for sale in this road, one is marginally smaller than mine but has lovely garden so I'd buy that first personally, the other one is much much smaller than mine, but all are on at the same price. Anyway, we shall see. Let's hope we can get the thread back to @Chanel05's original point because there are other threads where posters just get to say everything is overpriced, over and over again🙄 (meant to say perhaps @rainingsnoring would be happier on one of those).

Wary of wading into a row, but I think the "no viewings = overpriced" is a very sledgehammer type of a rule. It holds true if your house isn't getting viewings but others like yours are, and are selling. And if you look at it really crudely, there probably is a super low price you could reduce to and get someone snap it up - that's how "we buy any house" type operators work, after all.

But if there are no/limited buyers in the market then it's a different ball game. I'm very fortunate in that I'm trying to move from an area where the market is still moving (prime "moving up from London" territory so we are getting FTB money) and I was able to SSTC within a week at asking price when "priced to sell", but where I'm going to the market is pretty stagnant and even the people viewing houses haven't actually sold theirs. Even when people come to market at really low end asking prices for great houses, they are taking months to find buyers. There just isn't any liquidity in the market in some areas.

It's very obvious that buyers at the moment aren't expecting to pay the listed price. If they're reading everywhere to knock 10% off the listed price, then sellers do need to be aware of that when pricing.

There's no point us listing it at the price we expect/need to end up with if buyers assume the list price is one they can haggle below. I'd rather list at £370k and end up with a buyer who can pay £360k after haggling than list at £360k and end up with a lot of viewers who can't afford it.

As I said, 'sometimes these posters lash out at people pointing out these facts.'
You've just proven my point perfectly haven't you @GoingDownLikeBHS with your snide remark:
' ..there are other threads where posters just get to say everything is overpriced, over and over again🙄 (meant to say perhaps @rainingsnoring would be happier on one of those).'

As I said, people don't like others pointing out that their preferred price may not have been realistic and they lash out. It's not pleasant but it happens a lot.

@rainingsnoring Is your house actually on the market at the moment?

Anyway, getting back to the point of the thread, I've just had feedback from my weekend viewers - which I wasn't expecting and not sure how much you can read into it but ... One said it was too far from the train station, which it probably is, and the other said they wanted to remove the main supporting wall with the chimney breast. Big brick & tile fireplaces are a feature of these houses (1930s) so that put him off. Seems fair enough, and nothing I could do about those things.

As I keep saying, there are buyers out there. They just can't afford the prices because they are totally out of step with their incomes. It's not a question of 'a super low price', it's the price that the market is willing to pay but many sellers just can't accept this at present. This stood on the way up too. Think of the 'super high prices' in the pandemic where buyers were being outbid frequently. Some of them clearly underestimated the speed with which prices were rising. There are always exceptions to the rules and people who get lucky but this is how things work in general.

We're still being ghosted after our second offer!

Guide price £235000-260,000 offered 220k and was rejected, EA said they are looking for 240k. Went back with 230k and had no response and it's now been a week. I chased by email and still radio silence. We were fully prepared to increase the offer to meet their counter offer if it was a rejection but it seems the EA has stopped engaging.

Is this normal? Have we pissed them off? I do have the sellers contact details but I don't want to look like a stalker if the EA has put the offer to them and they have ignored the offer.

Can you not ring them?

He is like the fire-brigade turning up to demolish the shell of the burnt-out house (pardon the pun) HPC nailed all this stuff when it counted, when people still could have saved themselves from financial oblivion on multiple decade mortgage debt. It is like Andrew Tate running round spouting all the David DeAngelo stuff with a more modern aggressive spin that seems to appeal to some people, all just designed to part mug punters from their cash or get advertising hits.

Most properties are overpriced (if rates stay at current levels or go up) the market hasn`t crashed yet ( well sales have, but that usually happens quite a bit before prices actually collapse I believe) what does it have to recover from? I appreciate your different opinions but sometimes you are in danger of sounding like Bloomberg news where all the presenters have been whining about rate cuts from the minute rates started going up! (obviously they say what they are paid to say) When your vested interest is too obvious people stop taking the information seriously.