Is the property market for selling better than last year?

[rubberduck68]

Hi, so I did try and sell last year and got so few viewings that I gave up. Anyone out there in a similar position would say it's any better this year?

@GasPanic “Yes a 100k discount is big. But not if the property is well overpriced to begin with.”

I’m seeing plenty of £500k houses worthy of a £100k discount, or put another way, requiring £100k renovations.

I priced it at what it was valued at the first year it was on the market (2023) and then reduced it in 2024 because I suspected it had been over-priced (by the agents!). I reduced it further to accept an offer that fell through. It's not a very large property but it is historic, and in an expensive part of a city, so yes that can reduce the viewings.

100k discount is big but not if the property is listed at 1M or more - then it would just be a normal discount in a stagnant market. It’s the percentage that is important not the amount.

Celebrity houses sometimes get reported at selling for a million or more discount- but then the house may have been originally listed at over 10M.

It's nowhere near that kind of bracket; just very over priced by agents who did not know how to value it properly (one like it hasn't been on the market for so long) which is why we had to get the RICS valuation done in the end. It was all stressful and time wasting a whole year on the market at the wrong price.

'I found it was the sellers I wanted to buy from who refused to be realistic that was stalling everything, and I wasn't one of them'

I agree with that. I think some sellers are willing to accept big reductions on their own property if they can negotiate similar on the next 'step up' but then found sellers of the more expensive/larger houses unwilling to negotiate. It has caused some stagnation and people waiting for someone else to blink first.

On the positive side, at least you won't repeat the mistakes again and have some idea of what might be a reasonable price based on the previous offer. I would follow your local market really carefully if you are not already and see whether things are selling, etc and use that to guide you too.

Depending on the area you may also see more second homes being sold now they are subject to double council tax. This could further reduce prices in certain areas especially.

Market is slow where we are currently, nothing new has come on the market that we are looking for for over two weeks now. We sold ours last year and we want to move but there’s nothing. Lots of overpriced houses just sitting there though not moving at all!

We accepted an offer of 1% under asking price at the beginning of August and moved in November. A neighbour, with the same style of house listed his at £25,000 more mid August. It was reduced by £25,000 in November and is still on the market and few viewings according to former neighbours. Another of the same style with window upgrades has been listed for a month and already reduced to under our price.

The same properties are on Rightmove and have been for months now, even though a new development is taking up most of the first page on Rightmove. They don’t seem to be shifting either.

Agree with others that it seems to be very area dependent. Things aren’t even hitting rightmove where I am but that doesn’t accord with the stories you read in the papers.

Ours has sold easily for a fair bit more than it was valued at in 2022 (20% more).

In my area in the last couple of years nothing sold and were taken off the market. If not ‘for sale’ notices became part of the landscape. In the last couple of months the vast majority of houses listed have sold within a couple of months. I see ‘sold’ notices everywhere.