No viewings

[Ellena646]

Hi, we have been on the market for four weeks and not had one viewing. The agent just keeps repeating "It's August, very quiet" on a loop, although we are now in September. Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same thing. Not sure if it's the agent, the market, the price... Never been on the market and had zero viewings in the first month before...

I didn't know property log extension had price per sq foot. They are useful to see all the reductions though and sometimes have information on previous listings too. There are lots of houses that have been on and off the market for the last couple of years.

Acadata, which has their own HPI using land registry figures but slightly different statistical analysis and shows annual falls in most areas. The SE and London are the area with the greatest falls and Scotland is doing better, with rises in some areas: http://www.acadata.co.uk/services/house-price-index/

Also, otta property, which has data direct from the land registry too and also shows falls overall too but v area dependent. It also shows price per sq m. Unfortunately, there is a small subscription charge for it: https://otta.property/july_2024

I hope your transactions go through without any hitches @Ellena646. The UK property system is awful.

BBC news:
UK house prices in September rose by 3.2% compared with a year ago - the fastest rate for nearly two years, according to Nationwide.

What matters to sellers and butters is what happens now onwards not what has happened in the last 2 years and according to the latest data, things are improving.

This. 👍 Posters advising sellers to drop by 10 to 15% is terrible advice so soon after listing their property for sale.

You need to provide the link. This includes the important information that I and others asked the BBC to include.

"The Nationwide survey only takes into account buyers with mortgages and does not include those who purchase homes with cash or buy-to-let deals. Cash buyers account for around a third of housing sales."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g9dx5y4vro

This was my concern for you also.
Posters who openly admit they aren’t buying nor selling yet continue to encourage sellers to drop their house prices by up to 15% and choosing to ignore the latest news are very unliking just ‘trying to help’, they have a vested interest in the property market.
Hopefully it will work out for you but other sellers should be very careful who they listen to and do their own research before they drop by such huge amounts.
Of course you went under offer so soon. You were encouraged to drop by 15% after a month! 15% drop after just over a month of listing is not good advice. It isn’t their money they are playing with.

It's really difficult when you don't have much experience at buying and selling - this is only my second go and I'm only selling, not buying. Went on RM on 10 June at £400k, and had not one viewer. Dropped to £385k at the end of July, and had one viewer - loved the house but garden was too small. Dropped again to £375 the third week of September and still no interest.

I'm planning to take it off the market at the beginning of November and relist in the spring because 1) the estate agent is rubbish, and 2) I'm coming up to year-end at work and my life won't be my own.

My quandary is that I'm selling to both downsize and fund a sabbatical after a heinous relationship breakdown, so it's frustrating that things aren't moving at all. My fixed rate of 1.6% ends in Oct 2025 - I have a mortgage of £68k, so do I start the remortgage process in the spring and get a fixed rate for 12 months and bite the bullet on a smallish redemption charge if it sells, or grit my teeth and continue on a variable rate?

I'm sorry to hear about that.

On the financial side, many SVR's are around 9%. Assuming you could get a fix at 3% (just rough figures), then the extra you would pay over one year on the SVR would be around £4000. I'd probably fix if I hadn't sold. But do the math and see what works for you.

Not really quite sure what the latest national news has got to do with whether Mrs Miggins in Cleethorpes has an overpriced property languishing on the market or not.

Surely the best and most reasonable test of whether a property is appropriately priced is whether or not it is generating viewings and interest.

People can believe national prices are going up. They can believe they are going down. But that won't sell their house. Viewings and offers are what sell houses.

Every home, seller and buyer is a very unique combination and no single rule is applicable.

However, many people have the notion (as suggested above) that all sellers put their properties on for 10% more than they want/need and thus the automatic starting point should be a 10% offer under the price.

I've always said that you should pay what a home is worth to you and that you can comfortably afford, whether that's 20% less than asked or 20% more than asked (or any other value). In my own experience I have sometimes paid less and sometimes paid more.

@GasPanic yep- and it's very house and area dependent too - far too many people look at neighbours going for xyz and expect theirs to fetch that too- when neighbour has had a new boiler, a new kitchen, all new flooring, a new bathroom and and was redecorated inside and out within last 18 months and their house hasn't been touched in 15 years. Houses wanting loads of work are falling out of fashion unless you are a builder, know lots of tradesmen and/or it's very much priced accordingly to factor in the work because the cost of doing work has rocketed and that's if you can get someone in to do it in a timely way - as I said below my FIL is interested in 2 bungalows and the mint condition one is way cheaper with identical location, plot, rooms, -

@XVGN totally agree- we actually rent - but very nice houses and often pay what many would consider 'over the odds' -but there are things we factor in that are individual to us- is it on a great bus route so we don't need 2 cars or lots of taxis?, has it got plenty of spare rooms so we can run business from home etc ? If you are buying a house you intend in theory to stay in for 20 years then paying full whack or even slightly over is different to someone thinking 'it will do for 3 years'

Sorry to hear this. 😒 You have put your house price down to the next bracket on Rightmove, which is a good thing as this would have generated a new set of buyers.

Anyone in a position to proceed would have looked at your property by now. So you now have to wait for fresh sellers who have just gone to the market to sell theirs.

Although sale prices are improving according to the latest data, the market has stalled this month again as lots are waiting to see what the budget brings end of October, hence the general lack of viewings and offers at the moment. Price is irrelevant in a stalled market unless you give your house away for a ridiculously low price. So reducing further now would be pointless as most are waiting and buyers will offer below your asking price anyway.

November and December are slow months to sell in any market. Once the dust settles after the budget maybe confidence will be restored New Year/ Easter and I do think this will be the case. I would hold out on your current price until mid November at least and then, as you say, relist after the New Year once it has all settled down.

With regards your mortgage dilemma, it’s a tough one. If you can port a fixed rate to a new property then this may be worth looking at. Good luck with your sale. 😊👍

@PauliesWalnuts sorry for the stress you are under.

No viewings at 400k suggested you needed to reduce to 375k to fall into the lower banding on Rightmove. No point going down by lots of tiny increments that aren’t big enough to generate new interest. After a while lots of reductions looks bad so better not to bother with lots of small drops.

If you haven’t got much interest by the end of October/early November I would take it off the market until at least January. Try relisting with new photos at 375k first then 350k if little interest again & employ a better EA. You don’t need to worry about the remortgage yet. Price it realistically and you should have sold it before next Autumn.

Thanks for the advice, all, especially with the variable rate calculations - maths are not my strong point! Plan to take off and put back on with a new agent in the NY I think. I only went with my current agent as two neighbours gave good references, but I've been really disappointed. They haven't made one pro-active phone call since I put the house on the market - I've had to do all the looking forward and I don't have any evidence that they've done anything other than put it on Right Move.
And definitely new photos - three of the others that valued gave me the choice of the agent with a SLR or a pro photographer for £200 and I'm sure this one did too but no, a 23 year-old turned up with an iPhone and made the outside of my house look like a crack den.

Other than that, I'll have a break from keeping the house spick and span, start planning my RTW trip and sabbatical application so that I'm good to go after the house is sold, and aim to get ready for early spring I think. The break up was not wanted by me, it still really hurts, and I just need to get away and find myself again.

Correct me if I am wrong but you said
‘you and others contacted the BBC to include this information’ ??!!

And you all say you have no vested interest in the property market? Hmmm

I have declared a vested interest. I'm not hiding it and never have. I want prices to fall back even though I own a house outright. I want this for my children and all the young people looking for homes.

I have always held the BBC to account. They should not be able to get away with puff headlines without explaining the nuts and bolts of what's going on.

Thank you, I appreciate your honesty.
I have to say I am quite shocked that after all the recents posts on here that you and others have taken the time to write to the BBC to add a paragraph!
It does at least validate all the points I have been trying to make about some of the other posters on here at least. So thank you for highlighting this and for being honest.

Thank you, but do you understand why we felt that was necessary? They were publishing selective figures from a company without telling people the constraints, i.e. that the figures did not include the one third of transactions that were likely to be more price sensitive, e.g. cash buyers. So any house price growth they quoted was likely to be over-estimated.

But no one knows what all these cash buyers paid?

They may have all paid close to the asking price. Or even over the asking price in hot areas. So your added paragraph doesn’t prove a point that the figures have been over hyped. We won’t know the actual figures until land registry release the figures in a years time as that’s how long it is taking to update at the moment.
It may turn out that the figures are the same or even higher!

I do however question why people felt so rattled by a positive post about the housing market that they felt the need to send an email to the BBC to add a negative spin. Why?! Unless all those involved want a housing crash.
All the BBC were doing is being positive amongst all the doom and gloom about the property market with the latest stats at hand, thus giving people some hope. The latest ONS figures also show improvements, are you all going to email them?!

I have been made to feel like my points are not valid by other posters on here. This latest admission to me just reinforces my points that naive sellers on here taking advice from ‘empathetic’ posters are to be taken with extreme caution as they obviously want sellers to drop their prices for their own gains. I actually feel quite bad for anyone who has put their trust in them tbh

I assume this post will be deleted also 🙄

I reduced the price by 10% but my buyers offered more to facilitate my purchase so in the end I only had to reduce by 7%, which isn't too bad. The average offer on most properties starts at 5% below so I feel like I did enough to get the ball rolling, and then got lucky with keen and reasonable buyers. Important to point out that that my buyers are in rented and I have offered on a home that will go into rented so we are all "chain-free", and in these circumstances lower offers are often considered as there is no big chain that can collapse, no wasted legal fees and surveys... we hope!

That’s great! So you didn’t drop by 15% and ignored their advice. 👏 Well done you!
This is also a sign that buyers are now recognising that the market is now moving, albeit slowly,

We had no viewings at all for the first two weeks but dropped the price by 5% which seemed to spark an immediate response. We took an offer slightly lower, so all in all was about 7% less.

Dropping 20-30% is madness imo unless you’ve priced well beyond was the valuers suggest!

Another savvy seller! Congratulations on your offer. 👏😊
It’s great to hear that sellers are holding out and that buyers are now realising that ridiculously low offers will be ignored by most. 🙌

I wonder if the news that house prices have risen and the BoE are looking at cutting rates quickly will start moving things along. We've had 2 offers at 10% off, 2 at 5% and now a full asking! Woohoo