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?

I haven’t been able to keep up with everyone but seems people are having some success with chains moving along! I’ve also seen others decide not to move which makes a lot of sense in this market - I wish we had that choice but unfortunately have to relocate for work.

We reduced our price about a month ago which gave us a lot of interest. Quite a few people said they weren’t feeling it which is a bit of a shame. We’ve got two parties very interested but both need to sell their properties first - the keener of the two just reduced their property last week to move things along. They also put in an offer (although they are not proceedable and was a bit low but an opening offer nonetheless) which our agents really messed up on communicating to us. But it feels promising but I’m concerned about their affordability now they have reduced their property. At least we are still getting 1-2 new enquiries a week still.

We have found a house we really want in our ideal location, chain free. We are going to put in an offer in case the vendor is happy to wait for us to sell - I know it’s probably hopeless but I will be so sad if we end up selling only a week of two later and didn’t try to get it. We are moving to London so anything we want to buy is so competitive.

Feeling quite stressed about the whole thing already, we had wanted to move by September but it doesn’t look like it will happen. And we haven’t even got to surveys yet. DH really doesn’t want to rent. The waiting is killing me a bit to be honest… I know it’s nothing compared to some people but because we have to move the pace of everything feels so painful

Thank you!

And absolutely, they can take as long as they like, it’s a massive investment buying a house, I totally get it. I just wasn’t prepared to wait any longer when I’ve got buyers who ideally wanted to be in by end July - which in mid-March felt ok.

Also - even if they found something - what if those people then needed to find somewhere…and so on. I need to move, and can’t take that risk, so now chain free means there’s only a chain of 4. So fingers crossed…..

My sale has also progressed to the point of having answered pre-contract enquiries this week, and received the contracts to sign!

I understand. You had to think about your buyers and they wouldn’t have waited indefinitely either, especially if they wanted ideally to move by the end of July.

@ScoobyDoesnt congrats on the other offer. We have booked to look at some properties next week as we are still waiting for our vendor to find somewhere and we are getting worried about whether our buyer will wait! Hopefully something will move soon for us one way or another.

I am feeling really fed up with the waiting. We accepted an offer end Jan and had our offer accepted on the house we're buying end Feb. it all feels like it's moving at a snail's pace. Four people in the chain, only two of us are buying and selling so you'd think it would be fairly straightforward. Any advice on how to speed things up - I had hoped we'd be in end of this month/ early June

Oh crikey, that seems like a long time. What is the solicitor saying? You may have to chase them constantly. We accepted an offer on our house back in late Jan, had our own offer accepted in late March and our sellers had an offer accepted on their next purchase a week or so ago. There is no further chain so chain is complete. On our sale the enquiries have already been returned to our buyers solicitor. No one has had a survey done yet but I’m hoping our surveyor can see the house we want to buy next week. I’m going to ask my agent what our buyer is planning as they should get cracking with their survey really. I was hoping we’d all complete by August.

@Eskimole what exactly is the hold up? Which bits of the jigsaw have been completed and what remains?

@Eskimole I do sympathise - drives me nuts the waiting. I am in a similar chain where there is only two houses involved and are 10 weeks in from the time I put an offer in and closed the chain by buying an ex rental which is empty. I am working on the basis it will be at least 16 weeks. I am buying on a new build estate and there seems to be a load of extra admin involved as there is a management company, plus local Council interference plus a Vendor who seems incapable of filling in the PIF and F&F correctly. Oh and my Conveyancer going on holiday for a couple of weeks!

Our gut feeling was right, our vendor hasn't found anywhere and has decided not to sell...we were looking at houses anyway but there just isn't much. Feeling stressed today!

There don't appear to be any major hold ups - just everything seems to take so long, slow replies from solicitors, searches, incorrect or incomplete paperwork . Our buyer has only just had the survey done. The person at the end of the chain is very very slow but luckily just selling not buying as well, I know I don't really have anything to complain about compared to others with bigger issues (touch wood) but I just feel like my life is on hold now until this is sorted.

@IWasBornIn1989 apparently there is a longish wait time for surveys here (south east). We had two days notice of our buyers survey!

We accepted our offer in February but are still quite a while off exchange I think because the buyer has asked for some additional legal work based on the lease so now there are 2 additional solicitors involved and they are moaning about the delay when they asked for the extra work! It’s annoying because you want to make it clear they are the cause for the delay but also don’t want them to drop out.
We were moving forward with our sale and not linking the sales but we did also just find somewhere. Made an offer on Friday but they still haven’t accepted or rejected. I get they are hanging on to see if they get anything better but almost a full week seems a bit much.

@Completelyjo fingers crossed you hear soon.

We have another property to view this weekend. It's over our budget. It was listed £550k in December, so been on the market 6 months. It was reduced early Feb to £535k. A similar size property on the same road sold for £535k in Jan 2025 but it had a modern finish, changed into Kitchen diner and family bathroom with bath. This one is dated. It has the same bathrooms and kitchen as when they purchased it 15 years ago but I don't know how long before that they were put in. Theres two small shower rooms. It all looks tired, has artex ceilings, old fashioned lights, old carpets etc. We feel it is overpriced but have no idea by how much. The fact it's still on would suggest that as it's a sort after area. Might be the vendors won't budge on an offer or maybe nobody has tried. It's no chain and empty so you would think they would want to sell...guess we will find out more Saturday but just have no idea what a fair value would be for the condition.

Good luck with the viewing! They’ve not reduced it by much really, and not even dropped it a price banding on Rightmove etc (i.e. next band down would have been £525k) - which means it will still be visible to the same people putting in at least £550k into the search engine.

This would indicate to me they’re expecting close to that price - but that doesn’t mean they’ll get it. And doesn’t stop you offering what you think it’s worth - which from your description of the other property and the work this one needs I’d say no more than about £510-515k? £510k is around 5% under new asking, which seems reasonable, also especially as it’s empty and therefore costing them money in terms of council tax, insurance, utilities (even just standing charges) etc.

My purchase is progressing quickly after only a week, and my solicitor believes an end of July completion is possible, assuming nothing horrid comes up on searches. The vendors only bought it just over 4 years ago, so I can’t imagine there’ll be anything contentious.

I called the selling agent for the other property I had the offer on (where they’re 8 weeks into looking) to let her know I was withdrawing the offer, and she was so nice about it and said she didn’t blame me. I was so worried about calling her!

@OtiMama they sound unrealistic.

If the house wasn’t selling at 550k they should have reduced to 525k and then be prepared to accept offers from 500k.

Seeing as they only reduced to 535k however I agree with PP that it sounds like they are expecting to get close to that. Unrealistic.

@ScoobyDoesnt so glad your purchase is going smoothly so far. I reckon some EAs do feel bad for buyers just waiting. Can't all be heartless 😂

Thanks to both of you, my thoughts are the same. I expect they want more but it's not actually worth that...but at some point surely they have to crack. If the person has died, does the family have to pay council tax, standing charges etc?

The estate has to pay the ongoing costs - so it will be the executors responsibility (not to pay personally, but to administer the estate). If there’s no ‘cash’ in the bank so to speak to pay, I suspect it’s then dealt with at the end of the sale.

When we were selling my late Mum's retirement home - a real mare to sell (18 months) we were heading in to double CT - that was in 2018. Pretty sure now rules have been tightened up considerably. You would think in this case it would focus the vendors mind. My brother was adminstering the 'Estate' and had to pay the CT upfront.

Oh I naively thought you didn't have to pay it for a certain period of time. Are you saying it doubles after a set time? You would think that was some motivation to sell a property it you're not keeping it!

They finally accepted the offer! We’ve also made some progress with our sale and that is set to move a bit quicker now.

I’m trying not to get too far ahead of myself but also I’m already looking at kitchens and paint colours. It’s so hard to not be excited when you’re spending so much!

Forgot how stressful moving house is 🙈 😂

I found our perfect house on Rightmove, we went to view it and loved it. Put in an offer but they won't accept until ours is sold. We weren't even on the market but no problem we can get it on asap.

We live in a big popular village and including ours there are only 4 3bed semi-detached houses for sale in the area so I was expecting a lot of interest. We've been live for 5 days and so far nothing... Am I being too impatient? We have a virtual tour up which takes away a few viewings I suppose but still no questions or anything?

I wouldn't mind so much but this is the perfect house and they won't take it off the market! If it sells before we do there's nothing else suitable 😭

@Alim0 I wouldn't worry just yet. We took a few days to get some interest and agreed a sale in just over 3 weeks.

We really liked the house we viewed today. No chain, apparently it previously had tenants in it not a probate house. So better for us as presumably they are still paying council tax and potentially a mortgage and it's been empty 6 months. It's liveable but does need modernising. Now to work out what to offer! The EA was useless, she was like I just work Saturday and don't know much! 🙄

Caught up with the estate agent this weekend as I’m (more than) ready to lower the price, there’s a viewing tonight so we’re waiting to see how that goes first. I just want it gone, I want to get the estate finally settled and be able to move on.

Although a house across the road, same footprint, but better condition and bigger drive way has gone up at 65k more. I’m hoping a few people see that one and decide mine would be cheaper to put right

@jay55 hope the viewing is positive for you tonight.

We put an offer in on the house we viewed at the weekend. Apparently it's had 3 offers, all fallen through due to buyers for their properties pulling out. Gotta wait and see now.

I’m in the same position @jay55 with a probate house. We do have someone who’s said she’ll offer on it when she sells but no use to us at the moment. We dropped the price last week but I don’t think by enough. The estate agent and my DB persuaded me not to drop by so much. It’s me that’s having to coordinate everything to keep it looking okay though, especially now everything’s started growing again, and we’ve started to have to pay council tax. I just want closure!