Anyone else putting their home on the market in early 2025?

[newhomein2025]

Just that really - I'm going to be putting my home on the market soon, and hoping to find something to buy too. It's due to divorce, but I'm actually feeling ready to move on and find a wee place just for me and my teenager. I'm slightly dreading the process, and all the associated hassle, and worried that I won't be able to find somewhere I can afford nearby, but excited to start again. Anyone else planning on selling and buying in 2025 and want to keep me company?

Wait and don't do anything for the moment.
Tell agent you have gonr away/have busy week etc and you won't be able to make any decisions until next weekend.
This will
a) increase desirability of your property as they know people are still viewing (as people want what they can't have, mostly) and
b) allow you to determine whether they really are that interested and not time wasters
c) buy you time

Thanks. shame, they just emailed to say take it or leave it - at their cheeky lowball offer. So we have said goodbye, no thanks.

Yeah I would say no thanks, they were obviously hoping you had no offers and would take theirs! We had someone view our house, thought they weren't interested as heard nothing and then they came back a week later to view again and offered, so just because they aren't there first thing Monday doesn't mean it's a definite no. Sometimes they might have other viewings to do.

I just wouldn’t reply for a couple of days … wait to see if you get an alternative offer. All negotiations should be done via the EA anyway, that is part of what you pay them for.

If you do get another offer you are under no obligation to tell them what it is but the EA could let them know there has been another offer.

Good - they seem like cheeky fuckers who think they can bully you into accepting a low offer. Selling & buying houses should be a negotiation not an ultimatum.

Thanks everyone - much appreciated. feeling so demoralised... Hope everyone else's sales and buys make progress in the spring sunshine (Which is lovely!).

Well we’ve had an offer for 5% under asking. General feedback from a few that it’s a lovely house but just not the right one, and EA hasn’t been able to contact the rest. I’m of the view that if you’re interested in making an offer you’d Be proactive about that rather than waiting for the EA to call and ask but maybe I’m being unrealistic about people’s availability on a Monday. It’s hard not to be disheartened after so many viewings though!

Still nothing on the market for us to look at either.

Hope things change for you @Movinghomes - another offer you can accept may be coming soon.

Joining this thread as we are under-offer/STC for about two months but can't find anything to buy yet. It has been such a slow market and everything is going off-market.
Found a lovely house a couple of weeks back and agent told us what the minimum they would accept is. Initially went under that by a little which was rejected. After a few more viewings went back and offered that minimum. Haven't heard back yet (EA very quiet since so not sure if offer has even been put forward to them). I'm wondering if this is a tactic to get us to bid up but we are at max budget already.

@MammaDramaLlama we are in the same position with under offer but not found anywhere. Viewed another today but it wasn't quite right for us and top end of budget.

When did you give the offer? If it's been a few days I would email the EA and ask the situation as you've been viewing other houses etc. Just be honest and say it's top end and that's it if they come back. As a seller it's hard to tell if someone is just trying it with a low offer or genuinely can't offer more.

It was on Thursday last week - I'd have thought typically they would get back in a day or two but nothing. We are also selling through the same agent and their behaviour through the viewings and offers for this property has been so ODD! It has been on the market for a while and probably not selling because it is super over-priced. And they gave us a very clear indication of what the vendor is after and when we indicated on the phone that we were prepared to offer that they suddenly came back and said "No the vendor's onward purchase has gone up in price so they wont' accept your offer anymore, they need more". We smelled a rat so put the offer in writing anyway.

I'm now really pinning my hopes on the next two weeks and hopefully lots more properties will come to market.

That is very odd, all well and good saying they need more money but if it's not worth it and been on a long more time they might need to re-think that. One of our viewings has been pushed forward to an earlier time as the vendors need the house from 5pm tomorrow which is annoying because my husband can't come with me now. Just so much juggling your life when it comes to looking at houses!

I am hoping as we approach Easter more will come on. The only benefit I can see to lack of houses is that hopefully once we find one the sale will move on better re solicitors as they won't have as much work...although who knows!!

You couldn’t make this stuff up. The reason the cheeky fuckers didn’t increase their offer? “Because my husband is very tall and we need a house with very high ceilings for how tall he is”.

Was he prepared to spend his life stooping for a good discount? 😂

They sound nuts.

Oh, the 'dreamers'.
They don't have enough money, so try to get discount. Then once you accept, they will pull out after 2 weeks because changed their mind (still not having enough money).

Well.. guess what?

After we rejected the cheeky bastards yesterday they came back today with the offer we wanted.

We have told our agents that if they try to pull any last minute stunts before exchange or any point in the sale trying to get discounts we are delighted to walk away from the full thing.

Not completely unexpected.

I know the type… playing games & trying to be clever but really just making themselves look foolish.

@Movinghomes I just had a feeling you were going to come back with something like that...god wouldn't it have been so good if you had been in a position to say sorry someone else has it now! Well done for standing your ground and making it clear going forward.

Yeah I know a couple of you predicted it. We’ve accepted and moving on now as we also have our onward accepted and are chain free on both sides of us but I feel constantly on the edge :/

I didn't realise how on edge I've been since our old family home went on the market in autumn until this weekend, when it was safely exchanged and completed. There seemed to be so many possibilities for things to go wrong at each stage.

Joining this thread a bit late but would be grateful for the moral support. We’ve been on the market about 3 weeks and had nothing so far. We had two viewings booked on the weekend who cancelled last minute (so frustrating when we’d mopped and hoovered everywhere!!). We need to relocate so don’t have infinite time and getting married in September so I was really hoping we could move before then.

I’m thinking we’ll need to drop the price soon - how long would you all give it?

I had a feeling estate agents had overshot it and other valuations we got were lower so we were prepared for reducing. We really can’t afford to take less than what we’ve paid for our house in 2021… and we’ve done loads of improvements and redecorating (it was quite worse for wear when we bought it).

We’ve seen some houses in our new area we really like and would like to view but feels like we aren’t even close to proceed-able yet and if we do drop the price might not be able to afford what we thought. Don’t want to be time wasters as we know how that feels!

Good Luck @Movinghomes

Your buyers have been tricky early on but that doesn't necessarily mean they will be difficult going forwards so hope it all goes smoothly now.

Buyers feel a lot of pressure to get a good deal and negotiate hard. But you have shown them that bullying tactics don't work with you.

@Mercurylines if you have had no viewings and it gets to a month I would reduce the price.

It's not a good market for going with high valuations - sorry. It's the sort of market that it's far better to price your property realistically so as to generate interest quickly as it's never a good look for a house to have to keep reducing in price.

If you're going to reduce it then the advice I got from my excellent EA was to reduce it by 5% of the asking price. Any lower is unlikely to generate much new interest unless possibly if you are going down to a lower Rightmove banding.

Thanks @Twiglets1

we are currently on for offers over £375k and would reduce to offers over £350 which brings us down a band on Rightmove so hopefully opens up to new buyers. That’s just under 5% so probably the right reduction. We want 360 though so we’re sort of sitting in the middle of the price band but no one has come along with a cheeky offer at current price.

Unfortunately our next door neighbour got into financial difficulty last year and did a quick sale to one of those “we buy any house in 7days” companies who pay 80% of market value and it has really stuffed us on price.

@Mercurylines I personally don't like offers over and prefer a guide but I can see if you need to drop 5% you would have to keep at offers over for the £350k. If the market is slow I wouldn't be thinking I need to offer £360k if there isn't much competition and it says 350. If your gut is saying you thought they overpriced and you've had no viewings it is probably that though. So many EAs are overpricing to get business.

Feeling so deflated this afternoon, isn't it amazing how EA photos can lie so much. Just been to view a house today, they're saying it's fully renovated, no it's had a bit of paint shoved on it. Also the smallest room, already small had 1/4 used up for the stairs with some wooden structure and it wasn't mentioned on any plans. Such a waste of time! Nothing new has come up for us to look at either.