Why do some people not accept they have overpriced their house?

[oatmilkchocolate]

There is a semi-detached near me that has been on the market for at least 18 months, maybe two years. The owners keep changing estate estates but never reducing the price.

There's no mystery why its not selling. Its priced the same as detached houses in the local area, and its semi-detached. A really nice detached house just up the road sold recently for 15k less than this one is on the market for. And it had two bathrooms and this only has one. And this house is a unusual design where the ground floor is a garage and utility room, which has the washing machine and dryer in, and you have to go up a flight of stairs to get to the house itself, which starts on the first floor. Which is obviously going to put some people (quite a few) off.

I don't get why the owners aren't grasping that they have just significantly overpriced. Why not just look at what other prices in their area are selling for and reach the obvious conclusion?!

It seem obvious to me, why do people have to accept anything just because other people want them too

Estate agents who don’t update their listings promptly drive me nuts. I don’t want to waste my time phoning them about a property which had an offer accepted on it a week ago.

There’s an agency near me which sometimes behaves similarly and I quickly learnt to avoid them as they are time-wasters! Not only do they sometimes advertise and arrange viewings of properties which are already sold SSTC, they keep trying to push their mortgage products on you before you’ve even seen the property.

So true, the pain I feel when you see £3m property last sold for £450k in 1995 😣 Absolute peak generation, missed the world wars, have seen property values go to the moon, retired before AI and will be dead before the planet self combusts 😅

After two or three years you would need to be pretty thick to think "The One" is still going to turn up?

They would rather take a time machine back to the Western Front though than "give it away" to some young fuck who buys take out coffees and has a big fancy phone.

you're always entertaining I'll give you that.

Thanks.

Recruiters do the same too

A house near me was on the market three years ago for £750k, sold for £580k and the new owners have changed the flooring in two rooms and gussied up the garden in that time. It’s now back on the market for £995k. Quite how they think some flooring and fencing is worth £400k is beyond me and its way over priced for the area so I can only assume that they aren’t in a rush to sell or they think people are absolutely stupid. None of the £750k+ houses are shifting round here so it must be partially the estate agents fault, if they’re not selling then they should be advising more realistic prices to the sellers.

LOL, if it took a hit like that three years ago they are probably looking at sub 500k now.

They sound delusional.

I’ve seen people do it before. They’re not actually bothered about moving. If the market is buoyant they’ll put it on for an inflated price and see if they can cash in on the market. It stays on for a bit and either sells or doesn’t. They’re just testing the market really.

I think lots of people have done this in the past and often in worked as the market has generally risen, at times rapidly. However, 2026 is not 1996 or 2021 and the market is definitely not buoyant.

because they presume someone will pay it

But isnt it up to the people selling to decide what their house ia worth if they are not bothered why is it anyone else's business

No, sellers can't decide what their house is worth. That is dependent on what a buyer is actually willing to pay for it. Sellers can decide on the figure they market their house at and the figure that they would sell it for.
If they decide to market it, they will obviously attract attention online. If they decide to market it at 20 or 30% more than buyers think it is worth, they will attract negative attention and comments in a falling market.
The market is an interaction between buyers and seller.

You are correct i worded it badly but what my point was the sellers pick a price and can sit on that for 20 years if they want too it is theu3r business no one else's they dont have to accept any offer and dont have to sell to anyone they dont want too

I agree with that. Sellers can absolutely do that. They would attract negative attention, especially in a falling/slow market though, as I said above. It would be similar if a buyer put in multiple offers at 30% asking price in a buoyant market. They would also attract negative attention, be laughed at and not taken seriously. Still, people can do silly things if they want to!

I felt frustrated with some elderly relatives who were rapidly getting far too frail (the husband's memory was going fast) for all the effort of selling and emptying their very nice holiday flat. They had bought during the boom in Spain in 2001 and they were very reluctant to sell for less than the price they'd paid plus the cost of all the furniture they'd had made to measure.
Other relatives the same age had bought in the same town, on the same very nice street, and never even furnished the flat. Both flats sat there and cost them money to run while people living in the town didn't get to live anywhere so nice.

Agreed, they are just pissing in the wind now trying to kite fly.

The value of their house still drops though as other similar houses sell for less, they are not really part of the market, they could sit for 40 years, no one cares.