How long before lowering asking price?

[BunnyWilliams]

Our house has been on the market for 2 weeks at 475k and it has been crickets apart from one booked but then cancelled viewing and one viewing this coming weekend (someone on the agent's books, not someone who found the house organically and he's got reservations about parking as we've only got room for 2 cars rather than 3).

I'm keen to move because we've seen a couple of houses that we really like and I'm worried that if we don't move soon, they'll be gone and I don't like anything else that's out there.

Our house is valued at 460 on Zoopla. One agent said 485, one said 475 and one said 450. I went with the middle agent, mainly because I got a lovely vibe from her and they're the only agents that are open 7 days a week.

I really want to drop the price next week. DH doesn't want to yet.

We'd ideally like to get 460 for the house to fund our onward purchase but could possibly drop to 450 if we absolutely had to.

Do you think that dropping to 'offers over 459,950' is a sensible move? It puts us in the lower price bracket but hopefully someone would offer around the 460 mark. Or do you think we should drop to just 459,950 without the 'offers over' part?

I'm desperate to get more people through the door and I don't know how else to do it!

What does the agent say?

It depends on so many factors. I’d say if no interest = price too high.

But then it also depends where you are (will there be lots of people looking to move?) and what else is up for sale locally.

Hate offers over with a vengence! I think by lowering the price already it shows that you are motivated sellers, so many people aren’t. Only you know what. is a reasonable and fair price for your house. If you put it on at a good price then you may end up getting competition for your house and achieving a better price. I would definitely try £460K especially if you have seen 2 x houses you like and there is nothing else out there that you like. I know somebody who did this very soon after they listed and it worked for them. They got the house they wanted.

They agree that perhaps it's on slightly too high but it's a difficult house to value. They are happy to discuss a price drop next week if it's what we want. They agreed it would possibly get more people through the door but also said it's quite soon to drop the price.

So not particularly helpful!

There aren't many up for sale in our price bracket within a 15 mile radius, so I would have hoped that would mean we had a better chance of getting viewings but perhaps it's just because more people are looking at houses below the 400k mark.

To be fair, I hate it too. It just seems to be the done thing at the moment but perhaps that's because no one really knows how they should be pricing.

I think I'd feel happy with dropping it to 459,950 without the 'offers over' part. I do think we'll get offers of 445/450 then, but perhaps we could nudge people up a little.

I think you've picked the wrong time of the year to try selling a house. Springtime is best. No one wants to risk moving house over Christmas. Ours is up for sale as well and we're having the same problem but luckily we're not in a hurry and it can stay on the market as long as it takes.

Quite possibly. Although springtime this year was super quiet so it isn't always the case. The agent said it's been the busiest August/September they've ever had. I mentioned about the lull over winter and she said in her 15 years of experience, it doesn't actually make much difference. People might not want to complete in mid-December but in terms of putting in offers, it doesn't much matter.

Well I would give it longer than 2 weeks! Maybe another 2 weeks @BunnyWilliams

Offers over puts off those who wouldn't offer your asking price. Put it if you wish, but only if you mean it.

The quickest sales my son saw were priced at the lower end and generated a whole day of viewings and actually gained offers over in the end. He didn't want to join the bidding war, but he said that was the way to price and sell! Day 1 of marketing it stood out as great for that price range.

He'd been looking for ages and knows the market. They asked 280 and he says if they get 285 that will be a good price at the moment. He knows they had offers made over so probably not far off his good price estimate.

Good luck!

If you’ve had basically no-one through the door the price must be too high. I wouldn’t mess around with offers over, I think this works best where there is a lot of interest. Drop to £460k and hope for £455k?
Alternatively, indications are good that the Bank of England could cut the base rate on 2nd November which would make a difference to mortgages and could lead to an upturn, so maybe play a slightly longer game?

Two weeks isn't a long time on the market but, equally, you normally get a buzz of viewings during the first 2 weeks if priced correctly.
Whether you reduce not or wait longer depends on how quickly you want to sell. If you are in no hurry, you can wait and see for a couple of months. If you have a particular timeframe or really want a certain property, you probably need to reduce sooner, unless the weekend viewing brings in an offer. In terms of amounts, what you are suggesting is pretty much the same as the current asking price so I don't think it would be a difference. You probably need to reduce by at least 5% to make a difference to potential buyers.

@Feelingstrange2s son' is correct that pricing a bit lower is better in terms of getting lots of interest and bids, which may actually increase the price you get.

I think it seems very soon to reduce and tend to agree that a small reduction like you’re talking about would be unlikely to get many more people through the door. I seem to remember in a previous thread you saying that you did love your current house and could stay longer if you needed to so I would personally try and get back into that mindset and hold your nerve. If you don’t find a buyer then maybe you will need to take it off and re-market in spring and you will have potentially weakened your hand for then by reducing the price now.

I know it’s hard when you’ve got your eye on a particular house that you love but more houses WILL be along. We had a similar situation to you last autumn (put our house on the market to sell in order to offer on one we loved but didn’t get an offer on ours in time and it sold to someone else) and we were gutted at the time. We took ours off after three weeks as nothing else was coming on and we’d had viewings but no offers. I found it hard to believe at the time that anything as nice would ever come up for sale ever again but we’ve now bought a house which I like even more!

Think about the Righmove bandings Bunny.

I agree with your husband that it's a bit too early to reduce the price after just 2 weeks, however the lack of interest is concerning.

I would leave it another fortnight then reduce down to the next Rightmove band which is 450k.

Reducing it to 459,950k from 475k is too small a decrease to get any new buyers interested, in my opinion.

I'd agree with that ^. When we were selling a difficult place to sell, we put it on at X - got 20 viewings and no offers, so we dropped £25K two weeks later and got another 10 viewings and the offer we subsequently accepted.

I use Property Log and don't take people too seriously if they drop by small amounts at a time.

Thanks for your advice. Do you not think that if we drop to 450 we'll only get people offering 5/10% less than that though? 450 is the minimum price we want for the house and we won't move for anything less.

No, not necessarily. Although we dropped our price by £25K our final offer was only £10K less than we were originally marketed for (both offers over basis).

If you don’t reduce by a big enough amount you may not get any offers at all though. Then you’ll have to reduce again which doesn’t look great.

You need to find the price at which people start making offers. Whether you are able to accept them or not is a different matter. But once you have an offer on your house you may be able to negotiate price on the property you buy.

Generally, most buyers off asking price or less unless you are marketing at below what the market will pay at that point.

If you would stay put if you don't get 450k, and assuming that both of you actually decide to reduce the AP, perhaps try it at offers over 450k and see if that generated interest.

Remember you don't have to accept offers. But you need to actually get some before you can even accept, decline or negotiate.

I know it's a difficult market at the moment. Especially if you aren't a first time buyer property. I know FTBs have their problems in that many are green about the process but at least they come with no chain. We were all a FTB once!

Half listening to the news today and apparently it’s such a busy time now for selling houses.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of waiting until after the budget though at this point before making offers.

So I spoke to the agent today and told him that we want to reduce the price to 450 from 475. He essentially said no?! He said it's too soon and he and his manager both feel it's worth more.
I said that all very well and good but we've had NO interest for the 2 weeks it's been on the market which surely indicates something is wrong.
I feel frustrated that they won't acknowledge there's clearly an issue and they just keep repeating that it's early days. I know it's early days but 2 weeks without a single interested party is surely a cause for concern?!

I think I would leave it on a bit longer before reducing the price Bunny, it hasn’t been on a month yet, has it?

If I was the EA I’d have bitten your hand off. Commission on 450k is close enough to commission on 475k as to make no difference.
A bird in the hand etc.
Maybe they have some reason (attracting future vendors or concerns about their professionalism).

Can't think of any reason they wouldn't support you in dropping the price other they they're worried it would look like they overvalued it.

But they're working for you so you can insist, and when you explain you need an offer so you can make an offer on the house you want they really can't object.

I've been watching with great interest as I'm in exactly the same position as you @BunnyWilliams , around the same sort of price too.

I did have a flurry of viewings but they came to nothing so I'm seriously thinking of dropping the price by £25k before this coming weekend, which will be 3 weeks since it went up for sale. Now I'm worried I've missed that once chance to make a good first impression!

It's nailbiting isn't it?

you said you liked the agent you picked - have they come up with a good explanation for what’s going on? Is everything (unusually) quiet with them at the moment? Three agents gave pretty close valuations for your house so the price seems like it must be reasonable.

I must say too, if I saw a house getting reduced that quickly it would probably put me off viewing because I’d be thinking ‘they must have had no viewings, there’s something wrong with this house’ whereas if you see a reduction after 4-6 weeks you assume they’ve had a flurry of interest but no offers yet and want to get things moving/ are motivated to sell.