Change agent?

[Stumpy54321]

Been on market 10 weeks. Had 6 viewings, no offers. Only had feedback from 2 viewers one decided to move to a different area and one wanted a bigger kitchen. Recently neighbouring property with one less bedroom and reception room sold for £25k less than we have ours up for sale. Had a call from an agency saying we should have had an offer by now and asked if we had considered going multi agency. In a 20 week contract with current agent so not sure if we could? Also if all properties are online Rightmove, on the market etc what makes one agent better than the other?

They suggest a price to lure you in and then quickly try and get you to reduce. Sometimes it's obvious if you get a few quotes and one comes up quite a bit higher. Harder to spot if all the quotes come out roughly the same but on the high side, which is what happened to us. Sometimes it's just wishful thinking as well. When we went on earlier in the year, EAs and Rightmove were talking up the market like mad. The hoards of buyers were always just around the corner - after the budget, the election, the next interest rate drop, which was sure to come the next month. It never came and then you end up just chasing down the market until you hit the right price point.

Yeah I agree. Now it seems a rush to get the sale through before the stamp duty rise but think most will miss that boat now

Unfortunately this isn't the type of market where it makes sense to "test" it. As a PP has mentioned, there are still loads of people who want to buy a house, but their affordability has changed. I've read so many threads on here where people say "well nothing else is selling either" and don't seem to understand that, unless you live in an absolutely awful neighbourhood, that means all the houses are overpriced for what local buyers can pay. Those houses are already "testing the market" for you. A good agent will be looking at actual sold prices (not asking prices) and also houses that are not selling, and adjusting your asking price accordingly.

If your house hasn't had any offers in nearly three months it's your price. As a frustrated potential cash buyer I've had a year of looking at houses that are priced anywhere between 20 to 35% more than the previously sold prices on the same street, same design house and from this year (2024), so sold price data totally relevent to the discussion.

Each property I've viewed I've bought along where applicable previously sold price data especially when its from this year, the same design house, same street etc to ask why this house is worth 30% more than the one that sold two doors up back in the summer?

And all I get from agents is "it's what the seller thinks it's worth" or some absolute rubbish about a particular pointless feature of that property.

Imo It is a combination of deluded sellers and desperate agents kidding themselves everything's going up when all current metrics point to an economic slowdown if not recession, vying for your business that's creating this impasse.

And it appears sellers liked yourself maybe caught in the middle of this dishonesty by the agent.........

Thank you. We went with the price the agent suggested and also was based on a neighbouring property with one less bedroom and reception room that sold for £25k less than our asking price so thought that was about right as we would accept less than the asking price we are definitely going to speak to the agent in January to reduce the price.