Large homes in Home Counties (Commuter area)

[Fretfulmum]

We are looking to put up for sale, DHs parents home which is a large detached type in a popular and very expensive Home Counties town. Commutable very quickly to London and usually large homes sell very quickly here. Absolutely nothing is selling that’s similar on the market right now and I really do get it. Cost of living and large homes with stamp duty £100k+, maintenance and bills etc. I’m beginning to think, who exactly is the target buyer of these homes- it can’t all just be people in their 40s with slightly older children who bought 10 years ago and now want to upsize with huge amounts of equity? Who is going to buy all these homes or am I being naive that there really are that many wealthy people who want to live in these kinds of towns and can afford it?
wondering whether to tell DHs parents to stay put for a few more years or better to get it on the market now. No real need for selling other than the house is expensive to maintain and far too big for them.

That’s a great update and excellent to hear how realistic they were.

It’s the people being unrealistic that won’t achieve a sale. I know of a couple that had to drop by £1million due to the amount of updating required and it took over 2 years.

There’s a fair amount sitting on the market at the moment at the £3m + end of the market which is going to be a hard sell in today’s market.

I bet the new buyers are very excited about buying a house that sounds like a gem. By which I mean beautiful but expensive to own!

They were smart. And now they can move forwards

Glad they sold @Fretfulmumbut the EA initially said the house was worth £1.6-£1.8 million and it went on at £1.5 million and they accepted £1.395 million

A bit of a drop

That was before the EA even saw the house though so it must have been an extremely rough guide, and OP has mentioned that the house needs a renovation. New kitchen/bathrooms and probably some walls knocked down to modernise the layout, plus full redecoration.

True @Twiglets1

@deeahgwitch one EA told in laws that price over the phone and I believe it was an overvaluation anyway to get their custom. That asking price in 2022 would be realistic but not now with cost of renovations so high. In laws are the only home on Rightmove that’s sold stc in the £1.3m-£1.8m price range in the past 10 weeks since we’ve been tracking it. I’m going to keep a watch to see if any others sell in the next couple of months.

I don’t doubt that £1.7m will come back again for the house as a realistic price, but not for several years and by that time, in laws would be late 70s. Also there are better assets to invest the cash from sale now that will likely make it more than £1.7m within 5 years (according to DH as that’s his day job).