Why isn't my house selling - is this you?

[EarthSight]

There's yet another one that's trending at the moment - why isn't my house selling.

If you're wondering this, your house isn’t selling because -

a) Your estate agent is not replying to people when they should. No buyer should have to chase & chase just to ask a question or book a viewing.

b) You've entered into one of those 'modern methods of auction' contracts, which puts off a lot of buyers

c) Your house is too expensive for what people are willing to offer in your area's market.

It's usually the last one.

From tracking the market in my own area for a while now, people massively over estimate what their expensive kitchen or decor taste is worth to a buyer, when buyers might want to put their own stamp on somewhere or might want a hard floor instead carpets everywhere. A seller might love grey neutrals & modern style the house, but many buyers might think it looks clinical or prison-like. You might love your large kitchen and island, but a buyer might prefer a larger living room and think the island is a bit awkward where it is. One person's 'low maintenance garden' is another person's drab yard.

It also seems very common for sellers to underestimate how much renovation and fixing things is going to cost their buyer, so instead of reducing it by 30k compared to the general market, they reduce it only by 5k.

Don't just look at how much people are listing their houses for (they could be listed for a long time), and be aware that estate agents might inflate the realistic selling price in order to get your business. Go on GOV.UK and look at how much houses are actually completing for. There is often a few months' lag before sales prices are uploaded onto the site which is not as useful in a fast changing market, but it will give you an idea of longer term trends.

Most definitely (C) - my house is back on the market after the chain broke after 6 months due to a DOV issue on a flat which could not be resolved. You start to peruse the competition! There is a house at the bottom of my road which last sold in 2022 for £432K - its back on the market at £525K - from what I can see they have just redecorated the house - on what justification do they think their house has- risen by nearly 100k in three years. Another house now removed from the market - started life at £650K - sold in 2022 for £600K - did absolutely zero to it. Still no interest when they dropped it to 600K. House prices are very static in my area of the northern home counties.

There are a lot of houses for sale that are overpriced because the owners have worked out that they need "X" price to move. If they don't get that price they can't afford to sell. As a potential buyer you really need to be very aware of this. To avoid effectively overpaying to subsidise the sellers financial situation - instead of actually paying what the house is worth in the current market- which is often less by quite a bit.
This one of the reasons why there are so many houses on the market "sticking" and you will often see advice like "you just need to wait for the right buyer". The right buyer being someone who either doesn't realise or is simply prepared to overpay. Its always like this at the start of a market slump, which I think is what's happening in our area.

I think people still think they’re guaranteed a hefty increase every year they own a house. I sold a house in 2022 for a great price (sellers market and there was a bidding war). House back on the market 3 years later (completely different market) for 65k more (20% increase). They new owners had done nothing to the house except painted the hallway. It’s been on the market for over 6 months and hasn’t sold.

Near us, the houses aren’t moving because the only ones for sale were last modernised/decorated in the eighties so need a complete overhaul to upgrade windows, kitchens, bathrooms and heating. And that’s before you even start on decor and gardens!
And it’s not reflected in the sale price 😔

Yes also true that buying a “fixer upper” isn’t the bargain it once was now tradesman, materials and construction prices are so high.

That's right, also the prices of fittings, fixtures and materials have skyrocketed. Even those with the skills and time to do work themselves can't get it done at anything like the cost of just a few short years ago. The cost of a mortgage is now so much higher and looking unlikely to come down again anytime soon. Add to that the increases in utility costs, insurance, council tax, stamp duty etc etc and you can easily see why people just can't afford to pay as much for a home as before.

Can I also add
d) you are using Purple Bricks

House near us, up with PB for months, and didn't sell. Went up with a local agent, and is sold within a week.

Same here - the ones on the market are doer uppers. The people that have modernised are youngish families and they don’t want to move so are staying put and extending/modernising bit by bit. We are planning to list but I’m a bit miffed the budget isn’t until end of November (right before the Xmas slump). I think buyers/sellers are stalling to see what the changes are to stamp duty, which is adding to the sluggish market.

Yes. I had the most infuriating situations with doer uppers. I REALLY wanted a doer upper.
If it needs complete gut out (bar original features), new everything because last anything was updated was when ABBA members weren't even born, 30k under done up house price will not cut it....

In Scotland every house has to have a home buyer report done. This is what the house is worth. It does not take into account how much the sellers want.
It seems to be a much fairer system as even with the offers over system we have here buyers know exactly how much the house is worth and if they choose to pay over this that’s on them.

If the estate agent is a decent one. We have had 4 value our house and are some clearly overestimating in this market. Two houses down the road went for sale at a similar time. One sold with purple bricks quite quickly but it was fairly priced. But the one with estate agent not selling due to high valuation. Yesterday they dropped the price by 10% which is a lot.

Re useless agents. I tried to get a viewing gor a house which was well priced. Called 5 times then gave up. It sat there for further 6 months even with reduction... I was honestly thinking about dropping a note to the owners.

Wellll it kind of does take into account what the seller wants. Both times I’ve sold the estate agent and surveyor have asked what price I’m expecting and they put the HR value as a little below that to account for the offers over. Obviously my expectations weren’t wildly off where the market was but still..!

@AmpleLilacQuail I can see the estate agent asking but the surveyor we used literally did not speak, was the most dour person you could meet 😂 but he never once asked us what price we wanted, it was purely done on all his valuation. Luckily it was more than what we expected but the HBR was def his valuation

C.1 - And it’s an absolute mess - potential buyers can’t see beyond all your clutter.

Most people would benefit from clearing out the clutter & storing the rest.

We bought our old house over 15 years ago. It had been on the market for over a year at £700k, so we didn’t even look at it. They eventually dropped it to £650k. We bought it for £600k six months later. They weren’t in a hurry to sell but even so I don’t think I could have had that hanging over me for 18 months. Then another house went on the market down the road. Also detached, same number of bedroom but no garden to speak of. However that one was directly next to a bus stop on a main bus route on a busy road (ours was in a cul de sac). They wanted £650k for it. It hung around on the market for 2 years before they decided to stay put. Hopelessly overvalued. It’s always price.

It’s always the price. There is a house two doors down from us, but with one less bedroom, on the market for 300k.

We had ours on the market for 250k last year and we took if off the market in the end (estate agent wanted to try 280k, but the area is a shithole, no one is paying that).

A house another 3 doors down, also with a 4th bedroom just sold for 240k.

They are going to be the ones reducing the price soon.

My neighbour has made two attempts within 18months to sell. £70,000 more than they paid a few years ago. Without so much as even redecorating or making any changes.

They seem perplexed that no-one wants to pay over the odds. Strange.

Yes it’s price, but there are variations in how long you should wait for a buyer, depending on the size of your market. As an example, I live in a tiny, rural village. The number of people wanting to live here is small so there isn’t an ever-present pool of people waiting to buy a house. Here, you should expect to wait longer for a buyer than if you were selling a terraced house in Manchester.

We've observed our neighbours over 20 years.
The previous owner was the one that made the money. Bought as a wreck, did it up on the cheap, sold it in 2020.
The current owners have had 25 years of use. Bodged repair jobs on cheap materials. Paid a lot of money to replace the original refurb cheap materials.
In their heads they've upgraded, added value, they deserve a super payout.
The reality is a shabby cottage with poor 25 year old, plumbing, wiring, insulation, dated decor. Bathrooms and kitchens are well past their best.
They believed an online valuation in 2020 700k!. Finally, went for sale end of 2022 650k, dropped price to 600k, the 585k. It's probably worth 350 maybe 400.
She wants enough to buy a nice, perfect looking bungalow, he wants money for a cruise and and to bung the kids 30k each from selling the 'big' family home.
It's not just a house to them, it's a huge amount of emotion and reward and justification rather than a shabby, run down, dark cottage.

I agree, the rural house market is dead. Completely dead.

We are selling a house in a small village, it's very competitively priced, we inherited it so don't need to reach a set price to move. No one is even coming to look at it. There are three other properties for sale in the same (very small) village all saying the same.

We have been approached by several other EAs, but what they are hoping is that we are selling to move, and will buy our next property from them, they soon lose interest when they learn we just want to sell.

We are not moving yet but I have started to look at houses in the areas we are considering to get a feel for the stock. It’s seems to be show-home levels or utter wrecks. We are looking at 4 bed detached with big drives. It seems that the houses are either being sold as part of an estate when someone has died and are very dated and need new everything or were bought and have been totally refurbished already.

A house in my road sold for 500k end of 2020, it needed a complete refurb. An exact house but showhome standard couldn’t sell last year for 75k less. Those highs of 2020 and I had a friend try and buy that year as she got divorced has given people an unrealistic mindset.

Mortgage rates have been put up today by several major lenders.

For a FTB @ 95% LTV it is 4.99% today as opposed to the 4.89% we secured in Spring 2023.

Sure, it went up and down an awful lot in between, but never more than 0.2 or 0.3%, which isn't enough to make a purchase more favourable to almost anyone.

https://propertyindustryeye.com/lenders-start-to-increase-mortgage-rates/

(in Spring 2022 @ 95% LTV, we could get 2.77%, for context - and we didn't even pick the cheapest lender, so maybe as low as 2.60%)

What seems more interesting to me is how some people cannot grasp the idea that their place is overpriced. And when they get advice they often get "change the blue pots for red ones". As if that is going to make someone want to pay 50K over market value. And even if someone does turn up willing to pay massively over the odds, you'd better hope they are a cash buyer, because otherwise there is a high probability either the mortgage company or surveyor will put the brakes on it and tell the dimwits paying over the odds that there is no way in hell they will finance that deal.

I also find the "we've lived in it 5 years so put some laminate down and slap 100K on it and then try and resell" crowd pretty funny. Back in the bad old days when the market was rising at pace stupid you could buy a place, do nothing to it and then sell it a couple of years later and make a pile. Those days are well and truly dead in most of the country.

My experience is that the places that aren’t selling are either overpriced or have a fatal flaw: bang on a busy road, weird layout, no parking etc. Often you find that the current owners are used to the flaw and don’t see it as a big problem. They don’t understand that if one of your three bedrooms is accessed through another bedroom, it’s not worth the same as a normal 3 bedroom house and will be much harder to sell.

People also overestimate the value of their improvements. Ime a nicely decorated and up to date house will sell faster but not necessarily for much more than a slightly shabby one. You need to have physically added something to increase the value.