What price range on rightmove ?

[Spudnik21]

Just curious what price range do people put in to rightmove when looking for a new house? We have been putting the max as our top budget (450k)

Not sure if we should look one bracket up, or if that would just be setting up.for heartbreak.

Also how is the market for everyone? We are in the northwest. All the estate agents say the market is moving with things selling within 4 to 6 weeks. Although a rightmove trawl shows loads just sat there and not much new coming on. Coincidentally when buying our current house 15 years ago we had to prove we had funds in place, this time no questions asked , although we have only viewed 2 as our house is only due to go on the market in a couple of weeks.

I don't I just search newest first.

I can visually see whats not in my price range so don't need to filter them out I just ignore them. Occasionally if one is over my price range (no more than 15% and being aware that would be an unlikely reduction) but perfect I might go view (only happened twice in 2 years).

Mostly I only really look at houses well BELOW our max budget. I like to keep a £20k margin if I can for fees and because all houses will need work (every house we offered on turned out to have hidden roof issues + works you just personally will want to do to make it a home).

I would probably look at the next price bracket up on Rightmove. I definitely would not just look at everything in my chosen area. The higher price properties may be reduced if not sold quickly. My current house was like that.

I don’t put a price. I just search for any listings in the area I want. If you are too restrictive with your settings then you can miss houses that are actually suitable.

For example if you have £450k to spend, there might be a house for £475k who would actually accept a £450k offer.

Or if you want four bedrooms so you can have an office. There might be a 3 bedroom with a garden office that would be suitable.
If you just searched for 4 bedroom houses you wouldn’t have found it.

I never put any upper limit. It's easy to scan past the expensive ones that are clearly out of range but you might well get an offer accepted on one that's technically too much.

Our 450 max budget excludes our fees / fixing up fund or 30k so we have budgeted for that.

I suppose it just seems a bit strange looking at houses ( online) that you can't afford.

The point is until you offer on them you don't know whether they are affordable to you or not.

Looking at houses I can't afford online is one of my hobbies!

When we were buying, I was checking daily so looked at everything that came on the market in that time that was in the right area. Easy enough to discount anything that was way too expensive, and there were often houses that came on in the next bracket or even the one above that were overpriced and I would have considered making an offer on.

I would definitely look up to £475k if not £500k. Sometimes people want to sell quickly and will take less or a house may drop in price. The house we are buying we are paying £35k less than the initial listed price. Had we just looked in our price category we would have never seen it both at the first price and even when it was reduced.

Maybe the seller of a £500k is getting desperate and would accept a £450k offer.

Maybe a £470k house doesn’t need any work so you wouldn’t need your fixing up fund.

Maybe a seller is being unrealistic with the price, and you can keep your eye on it until they eventually use.

Lots of reasons why you should look at houses over your budget. Not doing so seems silly. It’s not like a quick browse on Rightmove commits you to anything.

I would definitely look up to 500k or even more if I were you.
Estate agents are not well renowned for being the most honest of professionals. Your quick trawl through Rightmove showing reductions and properties not selling plus the fact that they are happy for you to view without 20 questions suggest that they are not being frank. I'm in the South and follow a few areas and the market is worse here compared to further North and has been in the majority of places in the South since late 2022. It's too early to be sure but I think it's deteriorating now too. Given the economic background, and now the escalating geopolitical situation, it would be surprising if it wasn't worsening.

I apply a price filter otherwise there’s pages and pages of stuff to flick past and it takes absolutely ages plus I’d get inundated with alerts.

Post divorce I’ve got a small budget in an expensive area. There’s loads of properties at £1m plus and my budget is £325k.

I look at £400k max for a £325k budget.

Nothing is selling and many of the £400k ones have dropped to £325k.