How many viewings to expect?

[IDontDrinkTea]

We’ve put our house on the market about two weeks and so far had two viewings. Admittedly, these were within the first few days of being on the market, so we’ve now had no new enquiries in the last week or so. DH is wondering if we should drop the asking price, however I think we should be more patient and it’s still early days.

We’ve never sold before, this was our first house. Can someone tell me what’s a realistic amount of interest / viewers to expect before DH does something rash?

Honestly no one can really tell you what’s realistic, it depends on area and type of house so much.
We had 12 viewings on the first day and an offer the next working day as it’s a very fast moving area, in other areas it’s normal to sit on the house for months particularly for a larger/ more expensive house.
I know it’s cliche but it does only take one right person!

We had this with our last move. No offers - dropped 15K- loads of offers at asking price.

Don't drop yet, it's very early days.
Did you agree with the EA's suggested price ?
I'd wait until the E.A. suggests it.

Yes, we had two EA value it, and we put it up at the lower of the two prices (I say lower, there was only £5k between the two valuations)

Impossible to say really.

The house we have bought we where the first viewing and the accepted our offer straight away.

Other houses we offered on we viewed first but they held off on accepting for weeks until others had viewed and we got out bid.

Others we viewed on viewing open days and they where packed with viewers but still haven't sold months on. Some houses don't sell or sit forever (usually overprice or just too much work for most).

Some sold instantly before we got to view.

What was the feedback on the viewings ?

As for price, whats your goal? Is it to sell quick or get the best price?

Dropping the price at 2 weeks is fairly common here, it indicates a seller highly motivated to sell.

Its also normal and average to hold out around 4-6 weeks before dropping the price too which will then refresh the listing to the top of rightmove.

2 weeks isn't too long to be on so either waiting or dropping it is fine its just personal choice.

We got 18 viewings and 3 offers within 2 weeks when we sold ours recently.

Two viewings within the first week and nothing since does seems very slow. Depends are motivated you are to sell it really. If you desparately need to move for new job/schools, or you’ve found an ideal onward purchase you want to move quickly
on, then drop the price now.

If you’re in no rush to sell then maybe hold out a bit longer before reducing.

We marketed our house last autumn and got 4 viewings in 4 months. We changed agent in January and got 15 viewings in 1 week.

We did drop the price a bit but I don't think it would have made a difference with agent 1. Agent 2 just had a better existing marketing list to use so built up more interest.

We went on the market last February, had four people view in the first week, one of those had a second viewing and made an offer.

Our house needed no work though and was priced to sell.

This is probably very relevant. We’ve gone with an independent EA… so has quite a small existing marketing list…

It’ll be incredibly quiet at the moment as the stamp duty increase literally happened a week or so ago. Everyone was rushing completion through before then. And now we’re in financial turmoil. It’s not a great time!

Are you on Rightmove?
Are the pics good?

I'm going to shout this one because it's very, very important and often left out - IS THERE A FLOORPLAN?

Independent EA’s also don’t have a wide marketing base. They’re literally dependent on people seeing it on Right Move and contacting them. Larger EA’s will have a network of offices working together to source potential buyers

Yes, we’re on Rightmove, the pictures are good and there’s also a 3D tour thingy. And yes there’s a floor plan 😂

Normally, people who come for viewings first are the ones who have been searching for a while and now are viewing only new houses on the market. They are the most prepared/ motivated ones.

So if very few viewed/no one made an offer, it means either your buyers are on holidays right now or the price doesn't match what's on offer.

I can relate, it’s been very quiet for us too, our house was first listed two weeks ago, and so far we’ve had one viewing last Saturday that subsequently ghosted the EA’s calls for feedback. I do agree with PP that the stamp duty changes have stalled the market, properties like ours have previously sold within weeks (two the same as ours sold after Christmas, within days of each other). We are also unable to drop the price of ours too much, with needing to upsize. Our EA has advised we sit tight until June, hopefully by when the market will become more active.

We only had 3 sets of people view and one of them viewed twice. Sale agreed within 3.5 weeks.

My colleague had no viewings on her house for several weeks and one person viewed and they agreed not far off the asking price. So tonnes of viewings aren't always needed if the right person is there and it's not over priced. I would wait until a month before reviewing.

SDLT has just gone up. I think the housing market will dip for a little while because anyone wanting to buy a new house did so before rise in SDLT.

Marketing lists are irrelevant. If its
on Rightmove then it will quickly be found by anyone remotely interested in it.

Price is the only thing that makes a difference.

It’s coming up to Easter. It’s an even slower market at bank holidays. If there’s no interest after the bank holiday, drop the price.

It's odd. The UK Property Market Stats show on YT shows maximum listings and SSTC for many years.

However, RICS members are not very optimistic in the near term

uk.investing.com/news/economy-news/uk-housing-demand-slumps-as-buyer-confidence-wanes-rics-survey-shows-4024500

Yep. I hate a lack of floor plan, am I meant to GUESS the layout?

The toilet could be in timbuktu and the garage in the attic for all I know from just photos. Given some of the bizarre and frankly illogical rightmove floorplans I have seen over the years nothing would suprise me.

We tried to sell our last house twice. The first time we had five viewings in four months, had someone who was desperate to buy but couldn't sell their own. Second time, we had about 20 viewings in the first month, had two offers which we couldn't find a middle ground to meet on, but a third offer came in a month. So completely different experience with the same house. I'm sure the estate agents were a lot more proactive the second time though.

I wouldn’t reduce yet as it’s early in the house buying season and you’ve only just gone on. Personally I’ve always found the housing market heats up just after Easter and as others say, probably a temporary lull due to stamp duty/financial fluctuations atm. If still nothing much by end of May, then I’d think about a reduction.