When to reduce house price?

[housesellin]

We are currently on the market for £625k, 3 bed Victorian semi. This is in line with all valuations, mortgage survey and recently sold properties. However, you do need to really understand the area to understand the price.

We went live 6 weeks ago and have found our dream house, they’re waiting another 2 weeks for us to secure our sale. We have had 10 or so viewings, one second viewing. All have come back with either 1) the layout (not open plan, traditional layout) 2) no parking. One wanted to offer but isn’t proceedable.

We have two viewings booked for this weekend and our plan before we got these booked in was to reduce to a guide price of £600-625k. We cannot and will not accept less than £600k, we simply couldn’t move.

Do we reduce before the viewings on Saturday as planned, on the Friday, with the hope it causes more traffic and more viewings. Or do we wait until after the viewings? The EA doesn’t call the viewers until the next working day, so we wouldn’t get feedback until Monday and if they wanted a second viewing, we wouldn’t want to delay the reduction.

Well they now have 6 days to find a buyer.

I’m back with an update!

Our second viewing is interested but only at £575k, this is because there is a similar property nearby that is £575k. The difference is: ours is a semi, the other is a mid terrace, we have slightly more space too.

I am dumbfounded that they think £25k (we told them we’d accept £600k) isn’t worth it to them to have more space, bigger bedrooms, and not be a mid terrace on a worse street but each to their own (the other house is on a main road).

Otherwise the decor etc is the same.

The other two viewings want to offer but aren’t yet proceedable so we’ve refused to engage until they have a sale. It’ll be a while in this market I think.

We have another viewing today. We reduced last night to OIEO £600k so we’re higher on rightmove. We will just wait it out.

They are just trying their luck I would say - unless 575k happens to be their absolute top limit.

If not, it is quite likely they will come back with an increased offer because obviously they do want all the extra things your house has compared to the other house.

I hope so. I’m quite concerned that if they did, they’d be the type to try and get money off with a survey.

I hope our luck changes soon. I hate this process!

When to say you're higher on Rightmove what do you mean? I think most people sort by highest price (so you'll appear lower) first or newest listed. You might be higher up for a few days for those who sort by newest listed, as you've reduced, but as other properties come on, you'll drop.

Statistically, people sort by newest listed when searching for a property, so we would show higher until more properties come on / reduce. It works as we got interest within 10 mins of doing it!

Any buyer can ask for money off after a survey though.

Just because they have gone up in increments doesn’t necessarily mean they will be more difficult down the line than any other buyer.

I’ll cross my fingers that you get a better offer soon.

This is true, but I think their budget is less than £600k. I can’t see the logic of choosing a worse house for the sake of £25k. The differences are unchangeable.

Anyway, thank you for your wishes. I pray something good happens soon!

Being on a main road is a benefit though.

We live on a main road as a 3 bed terrace with no garden and the average house price on my street is £120k, the street directly behind us for a 3 bed semi with a large garden, off road parking and garage is only £89k.

This is reflect in every house we have looked at, people don't like living further back on the backstreets or smaller/rural road (one reason being crimes are higher in those areas too on the crime map sometime a street or two makes a HUGE difference, the main road houses constantly highly visable).

We are buying a house 1 street of the main road now, same size house on the main road would be 3-5x the cost we are paying which is mad really. I just worry I won't be able to sleep without the sound of the cars now.

I just disagree wholeheartedly and sold prices would corroborate me here.

The main road isn’t an A road, it’s a congested road as it becomes a one way. My road has better access to everything but is one of the many residential streets to the A road rather than the “main road” I reference - by which I mean that it is congested.

But the A road near me, as in at the top of my road, is substantially cheaper.

Perhaps it’s area based

That's a shame that you didn't get the offer you were hoping for.
It's possible that £575k is the top of their budget.
Hopefully you will get an offer for 600k+ soon. If not, you will either need to keep waiting or reduce further.

Equally though from their perspective they could claim that they couldn't see the logic of not wanting to get the deal done for the sake of 25k.

Everyone has their price at the end of the day. Have you considered trying to get your onward purchase to drop 12.5k so you can meet them in the middle ?

Thank you. We will wait and just stay put for the time being. We don’t want to accept less and put ourselves in a bad financial position - that’s not worth it. Our house is gorgeous and there’s nothing to dislike, we just hoped to get more space. But if we stay, we would have a lot more financial freedom. I do believe in fate so maybe that’s what is happening!

Our onward purchase already agreed to less than asking. They are mortgage free, happy to wait for the right buyer sort of thing

This. Good luck. Frustrating, isn’t it?

It's really good that you are in a position where you are not forced to sell and are happy whatever happens.

It’s so frustrating!!! So much emotion with these kind of things, wonder why I do it to myself!

Just so hard second guess everyone's motive all the time. Some people may think a house isn't worth more than they've offered but have the money and others may simply not have any more to offer. I hope you get a decent offer soon. I feel like a lot of people who say they will wait have their limits on that but if you aren't desperate it makes sense to hold out longer for now.

You could be me! I’m in the exact same situation - same price, same kind of house (not open plan), moving for the same reasons and also need an offer of £600k+ to afford the next step.

We aren’t having any luck with ours. I’m thinking we’ll give it another month or so then take it off and try again next year.

I think this may be the same steps we take. However, we’d lose our house we want so that would be incredibly sad. I do believe in everything for a reason though, so maybe that’s why. I will give it til mid July and then decide if we leave it.

What happened?!!