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...

Flexibility is needed on both sides. Personally, when I have sold, I've been very flexible because it is me that wants to sell the house so in my own interest to do this.

I can share my own experience from this month when I offered on two terraced houses, both with garages but no driveway, both listed at 'offers overs 450K'.

Each time I offered 455K and both have been rejected as the sellers are expecting 460K.
I wished them luck and moved on, the houses are still on the market (one for 5 months already).

In the town I am searching the semis are listed and selling at ~475-480K, are in very good condition and all have driveways and garages so it would make very little sense to buy a terrace when the semi on the same road is just ~3% more.

What amazes me is the lack of flexibility, knowledge and research from these sellers.
They are somehow fixated on a price and that's it.

I took a half day off work to view my last house because it was a gem, and there was a lot of interest in it (better market than now, obvs!), but I hear you that it's a slippery slope because you can't do that very often, you'd end up with no holiday left, and probably still not have found your house!

I think if I listed for over £450,000 I'd be well happy with £455,000. Usually you list for over an amount to secure at the very least, that amount. I'd love to have that kind of offer, at least it would mean viewings!! Were they rentals do you think? I know a lot of landlords are rushing to sell before the Budget when they might get shafted by Capital Gains changes. I hear that a lot of landlords are holding tight for a good price, which is odd considering they want to close before the Budget...

Most people who buy and sell houses are not professional negotiators and are unable to look at the big picture (for example refusing to do a £100 boiler service to facilitate a £500K transaction).

A lot of sellers also need a certain amount of money to move to their next house. If the market will not deliver that, then they will not be able to move. Since it isn't costing them any money to have the place on the market, many will leave their property marketed for lengthy timescales rather than accept less.

I think you just have to understand that most people who sell houses have no experience in conducting transactions of this size. Which is why agents are often required to make them see sense.

As far as the OP is concerned, another poster had it right in the respect that if you marketed your house at half the current price you would almost certainly have a buyer. Somewhere then between this price and your current one is the price where it will sell for the maximum amount of money the market will bear. The question is how to discover that price. It can either be done by lowering the price gradually over time until someone shows interest. Or an alternative method is auction.

People want houses. There is a shortage. All the excuses of "its the red rug in the sitting room", "it's August", "the market is slow" etc are just that. Excuses for the fact that the house is overpriced in the current marketplace.

Ultimately a market is made by people who engage in transactions, not sit on the sidelines with overpriced properties. If you are getting no interest and you cannot afford for whatever reason to lower the price, you are probably going to have a long wait or not end up moving.

It's always possible though, even if unlikely, that someone may turn up at any time willing to pay an over inflated asking price.

@xxltom I hear you- my FIL has just taken £550k on a house that was on for £600k - sold within a week - to be honest he originally expected about £560k anyway before it went on sale. An awful lot don't think sideways- as you say why buy a terrace if the semi is barely any more

My understanding of a stalled market (and please wade in if I am wrong) means that there's no momentum from the bottom (first time buyers) upwards... so even if you list your house for an absolute song, if there isn't enough movement in tiers below, then there are not enough people in a position to buy it, also mortgage rates are high and some sectors are laying off people (I hear tech recently did a 40% cull of software engineers because they'd over-hired in 2021), and across the board people are struggling financially, so I think (again, please wade in anyone who has other facts here) that it's not just price.

"Discovering the right price" is a good idea, but I have yesterday and today called two agents and asked this question about houses that I have seen and liked, but can't offer on, I said, "if I accepted an offer for 20% under asking price, would your vendor meet me there," and I got a categoric "no" phone call within the hour. It only works if we can pay it forward... I could discover the right price ( a term which sounds more logical and reasonable than lower my price), but if I can't persuade my purchase to do the same, I will sell low and buy high, and this is the problem...

If the seller needs a certain amount, then he should list for that amount and don't waste other people's time.
If you would list your terrace for 460K and the neighbors are listing theirs semis at 475K I know for sure that I won't view the terrace as it is overpriced.
Probably the EAs know this and they came up with the 'offers over' nonsense.

In my case the semis are indeed in a very good condition, so is not the case of a good terrace vs a bad semi.
I will most likely increase my budget a bit and go for a semi as the difference in price is 100/month.

Ours is a first time buyers flat. We've been on for two weeks and have had two offers (below asking) and have another 8 viewings lined up. We are in London and I think sensibly priced.

It is, but we have no leave left, and quite frankly if someone wants to sell something very expensive, I'd expect them to agree to weekend viewings if they want to maximise their chances.

I totally agree with you. As I said, if I was selling again, I would be very flexible in order to facilitate a sale. I would expect to be far more flexible than the buyers if I wanted to sell. The buyers would, no doubt, have a number of options.

@xxltom those sellers sound v unrealistic and are unlikely to get what they would like if you can buy a semi in good condition with a driveway for only 15-20k more.

@Ellena646 I would take a 'stalled market' to mean that transactions and interest had hugely dropped off, whether at the bottom, middle or top. As you rightly say, most people can't afford to sell low and buy high and that would mean that the middle of the market would stall, if you were to take a lower offer but the next tier up are not prepared to do the same. The things you mention about higher rates, more people being made redundant and people struggling financially are all price related and are the very reasons why some markets have stalled and prices are falling, slowly at present as most sellers are not willing to accept large reductions yet. It must be frustrating as it sounds as if you are prepared to accept 10 or 15% off yourself but some others are not. I do think this will happen in time.

That's great news. Will you wait for full asking do you think, or take one of the offers if the next eight don't offer more? Is London generally quite a good market at the moment?

@Ellena646 there's literally nothing to buy. Nothing to even go and see so for now, we will wait and see. We did have an offer accepted on somewhere but they've now accepted another offer - I'd have been willing to negative with one of the people who have offered on ours as we could probably make the whole transaction work but now we have nothing to buy, there's no harm in waiting for a better offer - whilst there is interest.

We’ve reduced our 4 bed home in North London by 5% but still no interest and it’s coming up to 4 weeks. We have called a few agents in the area and they say this middle of the market is struggling the most. Terraced houses are selling for £550-600k. Semis from £650-675k so apparently we are priced ‘right’ at £725k. One enquiry asked why we were so cheap and assumed there were issues with the house and declined to view which was bizarre feedback. We’re a popular area for people moving out of zone 1-3 but there doesn’t seem to be many of these people buying houses right now. We are going to give it a couple more weeks and reassess.

I have to agree with your estate agent. I have been on the market for almost 2 weeks now and have an offer without a price reduction. I also had another family who wants to offer but aren’t under offer themselves. My price is the same as it was when I went under offer in spring (bottom of chain fell through unfortunately) So price is irrelevant, it’s whether people who like your house are under offer or in a position to offer themselves. Sellers who are dropping their prices aren’t selling either. The market has stalled. I just got lucky that my buyers don’t need to sell a house. I for one will be buying before the stamp duty rises in March as it WILL rise and probably so will house prices, or at least it will stabilise once all this uncertainty settles.
What I will say is that if you can’t sell now and you can wait, I would take it off the market by end of October and re-list in the spring as everything would have settled by then and it’s the best time to sell a house. You will otherwise sit on the market instead and panic drop your price. So if you can wait I would!! There are tons of buyers online trying to influence naive sellers to drop their prices so they can bag a bargain! Why would they be on here otherwise??!!
Social media can have a lot of influence and this is one of the reasons the market has stalled. If you can’t sell now and don’t need to sell, I would re-list in the spring. Let’s face it, no one knows!! It’s all hearsay! And mumsnet buyers don’t know either!

I’m not sure I’d rely on stamp duty not rising until March. I’d think CGT and SD to rise immediately on the autumn statement - they didn’t waste time on VAT on school fees. My solicitor tells me they are crazy busy with people desperate to complete by Oct 30.

It's unpredictable what Labour will announce in the budget as they seem considerably less leaky than the Tories. I imagine that they will wait until the new tax year to make things easier. I doubt this SDLT reduction is making a major difference to the market but, if it does return to normal, it would tend to have a negative effect rather than a positive one. Even if investors list now, there is no guarantee that they will complete by the start of April but perhaps more landlords will try.

From the government custom and revenues website:

‘The SDLT cut announced by the government on 23 September 2022 will remain in place until 31 March 2025 to support the housing market and the hundreds of thousands of jobs and businesses which rely on it. This will lower the upfront costs of moving home and support those looking to get on and up the housing ladder.
The government has announced that this measure will end on 31 March 2025 as part of its commitment to fiscal responsibility and ensuring trust and confidence in our national finances’

I would be very surprised if the date was brought forward. VAT on school fees are slightly different as the selling process takes months so they need a cut off date as I am sure there would be an uproar of angry people mid sale facing higher Stamp duty fees before the agreed date. Unless labour want to annoy a huge set of people I doubt they would just change the date.
If they do this would hugely impact first time buyers who they are meant to be helping plus there will be less rentals due to landlords selling up due to the CGT increase.

LaPalmaLlama
Correct me if I am wrong but even VAT on school fees has a cut off date so that’s not even happened instantly as per your previous quote:

’VAT at the standard rate of 20% will be added to private school fees from 1 January 2025’

You are correct it will have a negative effect on the property market AFTER it is implemented in April 2025. So buyers have 6 months to complete their purchase between now and then which is highly doable. Why would you think a sale could not complete in 6 months?

rainingsnoring It comes across like you want the market to crash from your multitude of negative posts.
Are you a buyer or looking to buy?

Similar here, I also posted about it not long along. Went on the market in August at price suggested by EA, no offers or enquiries at all in the first 2 weeks. We dropped the price, had one viewing but no offer. Now nothing since.

The market seems very slow round here compared to previous years. I had a really good look through Zoopla and Rightmove and most properties are taking at least a few months to sell. I also looked at sold prices and noticed loads of properties that I’d seen sat on Rightmove for months did actually achieve their asking price or similar.

Mine (4 bed detached cottage, semi-rural) was valued at between £400-£450k at the start of June and went on at £400k. I felt that was too high but of the four agents who valued, three said £400k so as I've only ever sold one house I went with that. There isn't another similar house in my area that we can compare it to.

I've only had one viewing, who loved the house but the garden was too small. I dropped to £385k six weeks in, and dropped to £375k this week. If there isn't any significant interest I plan on taking it off the market at the end of October until the new year and putting it on with a new agent. I'm really disappointed with the agent who seems to think all he needs to do to sell the house is put it on Right Move (where they got the number of beds and council tax band wrong in the listing, and took over a month to put the floor plan on). I've not had one proactive phone call with them, and I've made the decisions to drop the price - they haven't given me one bit of advice. I told them that my fixed rate finishes in Sept 25, and I plan to go travelling for a year so no chain involved from my side, but there is no sense of urgency or proactivity on the agent's side at all.

My question is - when should I relist? I'd go for spring, but so many people are saying that NYD is one of the busiest days on Rightmove so tempted to go for then, if I can get photos done before Xmas before I put the tree up. To be honest, I'd be over the moon to clear £350k, and after a brutal relationship break-up this summer I'm desperate to just sell, get my RTW ticket and fuck off for a year to heal.

I feel your pain. Had I not gone under offer my plan was to wait until after the budget in October and give it another couple of weeks as you may get lucky then. I would then re-list in spring with a view to taking a slightly lower offer as buyers will knock you down anyway so always leave room for negotiation!

New years can be good but if sellers haven’t listed their properties for sale they can’t buy yours. So realistically you need to wait until there are buyers in a position to buy. Which there may not be as many after Xmas. I do think the market will pick up again by next spring as the dust would have settled by then and there aren’t enough properties to go round. Plus there will be less rentals due to landlords offloading their buy to lets.

There could even be a drop in interest rates as has happened in the US. Once first time buyers start to feel confident and the online scaremongering stops it will start to move again and this will trickle up the chains.

Anyone posting on a property forum has a vested interest in either buying or selling so take negative comments from buyers with a pinch of salt. 😉 The market has stalled and yes, if you drop your house by 50% of course it would sell but why should you take a massive hit if you don’t need to sell and can wait for things to improve? Lots of sellers are just covering their equity so can’t afford to take a hit as suggested by buyers on here. If all sellers do the same then buyers will have to bite the bullet. Buyers who are waiting for a crash may miss the boat on any bargains around now and will face higher stamp duty for sure in April hence me buying now! So there are buyers like myself around.

Good luck with your sale.