Anyone buying or selling in SE London at the moment? How's the market?

[Zone4flaneur]

We've decided to sell instead of doing work to our current house. We're in the selling at 800-900k band and buying around £1 million (god these are insane amounts aren't they?). Sydenham/Palace/Forest Hill/Penge area.

Just wondering how others are finding the market. We've had EAs biting our arms off for the gig but we're worried there's not much to buy- either optimistic pricing sitting around for a long time or doer uppers- I'm guessing stuff is probably going before it hits rightmove as seems to go straight to offer accepted. Is the market still quite hot?

We're being a bit fussy otherwise we'd just stay where we are and do work (we're fine for schools etc, like the street) but also wondering if the whole endeavour is doomed.

No- I wouldn't mind backing onto a railway at all. We almost bought a house once with a rail viaduct basically in the back garden.

Even more insane OP is the stamp duty of £41,250 on your purchase.

SDLT is a blight that adds unnecessary friction to the moving process. Better would be an annual LVT+Poll Tax to replace SDLT and Council Tax.

Has anyone used Dexter’s in FH? Wondering what the experience was

We are (still) trying to buy in Forest Hill / Honor Oak Park. I've got to the point where I'm actively avoiding Dexters as every interaction I have with them irritates me. (KFH have been a pleasure in comparison!)

Plenty of decent houses are selling very slowly or not at all. Others go straight away for prices that defy logic. It's all a bit random.

I absolutely would NOT recommend ED KFH. Picky buyers are so awful. I ending up hating my lovely house after a relentless stream of negative comments.

We've (so far) had a good experience with KFH in SW London. Valuation in line (or slightly lower) than the other agents who came round. Several viewings conducted ahead of the Rightmove listing which is due to go live today.

So if anyone is looking for a 3 (double) bed mid-terrace in SW London under £800k in a lovely family orientated area then hit me up 😂

Does it matter which agent you use when it goes on Rightmove anyway?

Not for people getting online visibility to your house, no.

But some EAs are much better than others at communicating, problem solving and getting an offer to Completion which is not easy in this current market.

I also think it makes a lot if difference if you find them annoying. It's a good idea to go and look at some houses with the agent you're thinking about as well, to see what they're pushing, how they are with buyers. Do they know much about the house? Have they shown you something you're not interested in?

What a fantastic tip!

Well we're on the market. Had one viewing yesterday and 3 lined up at the weekend. Not sure if that's good or not!

A couple of the houses we've been interested in are going under offer so stuff does seem to be slowly shifting.

Are people offering before they have an offer on their own at the moment? Last time we bought we went into rented in between so not sure how that is working now.

If you’ve just gone on the market, it sounds decent to have 4 viewings in the first week or so. I expect you will get more viewings soon.

Some people do offer before having an offer on their own but I wouldn’t personally. Any offer you make will be taken a lot more seriously if you wait until you are proceedable. Offering before you are proceedable is helpful to the EA as they can use it to stimulate more interest (FOMO) but it probably won’t help you as sensible owners will continue marketing the property until they have a proceedable offer from someone.

Yes they've all been proceedable as well which is good.

On reflection easter weekend is a bit of a funny one isn't it; lots of people away and EAs aren't open today. Probably should have gone a week earlier but we weren't ready.

@Twiglets1 that's what we thought but then you read about people making offers before they've got an offer themselves which seems daft to me- I would always say thanks, we'll leave it on the table, come back when you're proceedable to buyers. Definitely would not take it off the market.

We are selling in East London in fact I’ve detailed it on another thread which you might want to check OP. We have just gone under offer, went with a local EA known for being realistic. Priced as OIEO (which I now know annoys some people) & got an offer 10k under which we’ve accepted.
We are looking to buy in Kent in a popular area near to my family & the problem there is that the properties seem to on at inflated prices still & turnover is pretty slow. We decided not to view anywhere until we were under offer as we thought we would find it frustrating.

One thing we’ve found is that in Kent houses are eventually being reduced by 50k or more which I don’t think is a good look. I think some sellers feel they don’t want to reduce any further (or can’t afford to) but when sellers like us have accepted reduced offers we can’t afford the higher prices so houses just end up sitting there. But one thing I would say is that at least in our area of London there seems to be a lot of interest & we had a viewing day with about 20 people viewing. Unfortunately it didn’t result in any offers 😂.
Good luck today OP!

Who did you go on with in the end?

@Zone4flaneur I imagine Easter weekend is a good time to list as a lot of people have time off work so more time to look on Rightmove and think/talk about shortlisting properties. Even if people are away they can still look at Rightmove and Spring is traditionally a good time to sell.

Good luck OP. That sounds like a good amount of interest in your house. We are not seeing any new houses come up where we want to buy so I'm not feeling the pressure to be under offer yet. The houses that you are seeing going under offer, are you seeing these on the property portals or directly on EA websites?

It can be fine. We viewed a property on good Friday 2 years ago (with the vendor, far better than with an agent, and possibly a key reason why the transaction happened in the end), made an offer on Monday (at asking) and it was accepted on Tuesday.

@Heath3 rightmove usually- stuff seems to be on for a few weeks before going under offer with some that are overpriced or need loads of reno work sitting around for longer.

Selling house in Forest Hill, been on market a good month or so. Loads of viewings at first, now not many. No offers. But also no push back on price according to EA. It’s baffling.

Last time I sold in same area house got 3 offers in first week:

How's everyone getting on? I've called one agent so far (Conran's). Does anyone have any views on them?

What about KFH Brockley?

I've booked in 2 agents for valuations. Conrans and Mundays. I'm desperately trying to avoid Dexters but I know they are on for lots of places around us and they can make viewing places tricky if you don't sell with them.

We had a second viewing last night which apparently 'went well' and have 2 more this afternoon.

Good feedback mostly from other viewings but a few not sure about the area etc. One 'the kitchen is too narrow'- I mean fine but the ones on the street with the side return done go for another 100k so...

Dexter's keep calling me about random properties 10 miles away so I can't say I'm impressed with them!

@Llistamista we're looking in FH, if it's on RM I've probably seen it but on the offchance it's a 4 bed 2 bath I haven't...