Struggling to sell house

[Ep9993]

Anyone else really struggling to sell their house at the moment?

We've been on since July, southwest London. We've had mostly good feedback. One really cheeky low ball offer and an asking price one that immediately fell through. Already reduced the price and believe it's on at a reasonable price. The house next door sold this year for the price we're after.

Really at my whits end with the constant tidying!

A year ago was a different market.....the cost of living is forever going up, interest rates are changing and there's a budget coming up.......

2 months ago was a different market in my area of south east London. Over the summer the market died and it hasn’t picked up. Although houses on popular roads are still going.

We sold at the beginning of August last year, for the second time. The house next door but one, went on the market a couple of weeks later and was removed from sale in May this year. Same style of house, same age, different market in those couple of weeks.

The housing market seems to be stalling lately. It's a buyer's market since they can drive prices down by demanding sellers lower them, and with prices going up and people struggling, I don't think people are keen on taking on a huge debt at the moment. If you really supercalifragilisticexpialidociously need to move, then you have to be willing to take any offer given.

I think uncertainty around the budget isn’t helping but I also think commentators are of the view Labour won’t change anything yet.

Hmm that's the difficulty we really do need to sell! But the latest offer would mean a loss of nearly 50k since we bought.

Summer over this way has been terrible too. I'm actually looking to move over South East way -Bromley/Beckenham area and not much is coming on the market. Lots of the house we're interested in buying have been sat around for months too

The term “ buyers market” is a bit of a misnomer I think. You need to be a fully cash buyer to benefit from a stagnant house market Otherwise you end up being on the receiving end and having to accept a lower price for the house you are selling, which means lowering your offer or finding a cheaper place or borrowing more. No winners in that scenario.

I think there’s a few things at play:
Waiting for budget
Cost of living in general
Shaky jobs market in a lot of sectors
Unlikely to complete by Xmas now

O...okay, that's painful. Ouch. I'm sorry. 😬

We are more central and our area was mental up until the summer.

It’s the timing OP; the market in most places seems pretty much dead at the moment. We are in the process of trying to relocate from our London suburb and have just sold ours for the second time since going on the market in May - first sale fell through, we went back on the market in August and as of last week have finally (fingers crossed!) gone under offer again, but it took 65 viewings and two price reductions to achieve that, and we are accepting significantly less than the original offer we had back in June. We are lucky to have what seem to be very motivated buyers, but there is now literally nothing suitable on the market in our chosen location so we are looking at having to rent for a while.

We have noticed that the market has been markedly quieter since we relisted in August, and there has been no post-summer holiday bounce. The same few houses are failing to sell, being removed from the market for a few weeks and then relisted with a different agent. I agree that unless people absolutely have to move they are now holding off until after the budget and Christmas period. Quite a few of the houses that we have tried to view in our target area have been taken off the market, and I imagine some will relist next spring. It’s a tough game at the moment unfortunately.

I’ve been trying to sell my late parents house since early July. It needs modernising, but is structurally sound. You could literally just buy it and move in, the work that needs doing is stuff like new carpets, a lick of paint. It’s a good size and in a sought after conservation area. When I had to get it valued for probate mid 2024, it was valued at £500,000. The agent at the time said when I was ready to list it, he would list it at £525k. I wasn’t in position to list it until this summer, due to needing to declutter, think three huge skips, us hiring a van to take stuff to the skip, then house clearance to take the stuff we couldn’t break up and get rid of ourselves.

So we put it on the market early July at £445k for a quick sale. This was because of the dip in house prices, etc. Got a quick offer in just below guide price. Then the chain below collapsed. It’s been back on the market, reduced, from late September, and no interest whatsoever. It’s on less than other similar priced properties in the same area. EA talking about price reduction again. Have decided against this, will leave it on market for a couple of weeks post budget, then withdraw it. Wait for the market to improve and relist then. Costly, but I reached the stage of not being prepared to drop it further. I’d rather consider renting it out, or even moving into it myself, and selling my own which is worth less, in a totally different area, but a fairly buoyant area.

I think it’s an awful market for buyers and sellers alike, It’s like everything is stacked against us.

If it’s not selling easily then the price is too high, simple as that.

Set up Area360 for RM (Google it). Find your property on RM. Click on the Area Profile button in the bottom right hand corner. Go down to the bottom to see what prices have been doing for your property type for the last 10 years. Are you in the ball park?

We’ve been trying to sell since June with 2 price drops, a couple of second viewings and no offers. We’re based in the south.

The only movement on rightmove in our village is people relisting with new estate agents. One of our local companies has also gone out of business.

I don’t think we’ll now have any chance of an offer until next spring at the earliest. Hard to know if we should come off the market for a bit or just hang around on rightmove.

We did technically sell ours (offer accepted from chain free buyer) but can't find anything to buy so are giving up and doing a reno.

We offered on one place at about 70k under asking (south london so that's not a big %), knowing no house on that street had got near their asking price. This was in June, it's still on the market while everything else gets reduced around it. Stuff seems to be the same houses sitting there forever or just switching agents every 4 weeks at the same price. Totally dead.

We bought our current place last September and there are houses still on RM now that had been on there for months before we even saw this place!

2 or 3 have been on for 2 years almost

Market has been falling since 2023, the more you wait the lower the selling price will be. Taxes are only going one way, whether at this budget or the next, and the same for the cost of living. We are far from the bottom in house prices, especially for expensive properties.

I agree with Papricat, the longer you wait to reduce to become the best priced in your area - the less you will eventually get. This slump is going to continue. Houses are selling in my location, but only when the vendor is savy enough to realise how prices have changed. With the rest of the houses on the market it's either death by a thousand cuts or giving up and staying put. Cost to borrow and cost to live changes simply mean less affordability. Inflation is still roaring in reality, borrowing rates may have to go up rather than come down, the government is desperately looking at housing to see how it can milk a better tax return etc et. The list of reasons is endless. If you really want to sell, get ahead of the curve on price and you will. That "cheeky" offer you turned down is likley to be more than the next cheeky offer...

Not many buyers at the moment so if you want to sell you will need to discount a lot. On the flip side if you do get a buyer you can hammer other sellers for a discount.

Given you are in London which is declining faster than most areas, selling up fast for a lesser price and renting for a bit might be a good strategy. Then you will be the cash buyer and in prime position to get a good deal from someone even more desperate than you.

As everyone else has said, house prices are falling in many areas, especially in the South and have been for some time. It looks as if the falls may have increased recently. I can only see things getting worse personally so I would strongly consider the lower offer/ try to negotiate if you really need to sell. I'm really sorry that you are looking at a potential loss @Ep9993. You won't be the only one.

I'd be quite happy to sell ours a a lower price than we brought it. Want to move up to the very north of UK., but not getting any viewings though

We finally accepted an offer after 5 months! It's for 10k less than we bought it for but that certainly beats 50k less.
How are you getting on with viewings? We had about 1 a week for a long time and the same feedback that it was too small.

Need Labour out. A lot of people are worried about what they will do next to affect our net income/cost of living so are staying put.

2 viewings since October! So not even the point of discussing lowball offers sadly 😕.
So glad you managed to sell