Selling newbuild

[Mintfrost]

Bought in 2015, still living in it and want to sell. It’s in great condition with a roof terrace and loads of light. The issue is it’s 3 bedrooms but we don’t have parking. Is it still sellable do you reckon? Should I am to sell up fast? How long can you stay in newbuild before you should sell up?

It’s no longer a new build.
You bought it, why wouldn’t someone else?

All houses will get sold, you just have to adjust your pricing. It also depends where you live. I live in a small town and parking is a must here. So you'd have to drop your price to appeal to the minority who don't require parking. But in London, it may be less of an issue with good public transport.

How are other properties on your development selling? In the decade since it was built has the estate gained a reputation around building quality, design/layout, parking, facilities, community etc? This could be good or bad but something to think about in judging saleability.

Fundamentally don't expect to achieve new build prices for a 10 Yr old house.

It’s not a new build so you won’t get the “new build premium” that you paid. A 3 bed property with no parking is obviously less attractive than one with parking, nevertheless it will sell eventually if priced correctly. It may take longer to sell than average for your area though.

If there’s nothing you can do about the lack of parking then you need to think about the positives with the property and focus on those.

Some slightly strange questions here.
Is it still sellable?
How long can you stay in a newbuild before you should sell up?

Any house will sell at the right price. The house obviously appealed you so it will appeal to someone else.
You can sell a newbuild immediately or you can stay for the rest of your natural life, you sell when it no-longer suits you and/or when it is affordable.

I think the OP is probably asking will it sell for the price they paid in 2015. The only answer to that is to ask 3 local agents to give an estimate of a realistic selling price. Its so area dependent, some new builds will be worth more after 9 years, some worth less.
Everything sells if correctly priced.

Houses on our newbuild estate have all sold for more than the first owners paid. The house across the road sold for £43k more in 2022 than it cost new in 2020. So saying "you won't get back your newbuild premium" definitely isn't true in all cases.

We're currently selling ours and not having much success simply because the market is very slow for this house/location due to mortgage rates. But not one of the estate agents has suggested marketing anywhere near as low as the price we paid originally, and identical houses are selling for £30k more than new, they're just on the market a long time before they sell.

"We're currently selling ours and not having much success simply because the market is very slow for this house/location due to mortgage rates the price is too high"

Ftfy.

Of course you can sell it now!!

Does it still have 2 years of the NHBA warranty left on it? That's an advantage, if so, and it should be mentioned in the advert.

Where do you park? If there is parking easily available nearby, the estate agent should say something like (right down the bottom of the advert) 'the vendors have no problems parking on the estate' - as long as that's true.

Secondhand new builds are a mixed bag. I'm currently looking at one (due to a good location) that's priced about 32k under inflation-adjusted market value, so they've already priced it low (300k), but it's BLAND. They've left it exactly as it was built, with a functional but unsophisticated kitchen, basic bathroom hardware with those horrible brown tiles that were popular with developers, and it doesn't exactly inspire me to want to rush to view it. It's been on the market since January; they haven't really added any value by not doing anything to it; it's only 13 years old but already looks horribly dated.

Have you made any improvements to yours? That can be the difference between a house flying off the market or one sitting around forever, because it has something that all the others do not.

If there are many others on the market, you need to price it much lower than them all to attract interest.

Put your postcode into houseprices.io and hover over your house; it will tell you the inflation-adjusted value.

Remember that new builds are often 10% more expensive, and you might still have to take 5-10% off that to get the price people are actually prepared to pay.

The other thing to bear in mind that I find with second-hand new builds - at least at present - is that they're often in areas where people continue to build. So you might find new builds are going up in your area for only 10-20k more than you want to sell yours for. What's a buyer going to do, fork out another 20k and have shiny new kitchens and bathrooms and a 10 year NHBA certificate, or buy yours?

That's why it's important to look hard at the competition and price it really keenly.

Oh, it's you again. 👋🏻 I see you a lot always boring on about houses being priced too high. Don't you get as bored writing it as I do reading it?

Like I said, houses here are selling well above what they cost new, they're just taking time to do so. Identical houses to ours have sold for higher than our asking price in the last few months, there’s just a small pool of FTB who can afford any houses in our expensive area. Obviously you could sell any house instantly if you dropped the price low enough, but that’s not how you judge market value.

ok it isn't true in all cases, just most cases.

Average house prices rose significantly between 2020 and 2022 because of the pandemic and stamp duty holiday, peaking in mid 2022 - so not a typical example.

As said before, you bought it, so why wouldn't someone else. Different things concern different people when looking for a property. If you want to sell, all you can do is put it on the market and wait - the agent should price it accordingly, ie a little lower as no parking, but that might mean someone who wants to a property similar to yours, can afford it.