Anyone else looking for a unicorn?

[FickleOcelot]

We've been wanting to move to somewhere slightly bigger and detached for a while now but there just doesn't seem to be anything available.

Our house is probably worth around 200,000 (we live in a cheaper area) and there's plenty for sale around this price point but then it seems that everything else on the market is 500,000 plus or new builds and new builds just don't have the outside space we'd want.

I didn't think our wants were that specific but I've literally not seen anything that even looks like a possibility in 6 plus months of looking

We’re in a similar boat. We’ve got our eye on a place that’s perfect except it’s 100k over budget and in full need of modernisation. It’s been on the market for 18 months with no offers. Probate sellers - with completely unrealistic price ideas it seems. Could live in it in its current state but it’s still overpriced. I blame the estate agents for over valuing things, so many properties just sat around going nowhere.

and by full modernisation I mean no central heating, no double glazing, fifty + year old bathroom and kitchen etc, not just needs a lick of paint. People seem to have no idea how much it costs to bring a house up to modern standard and not factor it in.

@Fibrous - yes, also seeing a lot of probate sales of houses built in the 60s/70s that look like the owners bought them as new and have done no decorating/updating this century. But not priced as such.

Widen your area

We moved in late 2024 and some of the houses we saw when we first started looking (after accepting an offer on ours) in May '24 are still for sale now with little/no reductions. Many of these are probate sales too. The one we eventually purchased was also a probate and I do think we overpaid slightly, but we were starting to panic as we were desperately keen to move back home to England from Wales.

Ours (period cottage) hadn't really been touched since it was last renovated in the mid 1960s - 60s windows, kitchen and bathroom/cloaks, early 80s boiler, ancient plug sockets etc - but the original asking price was not dissimilar to a recently renovated property in the street.

We're considering moving again when ours is finished, but we're seeing no good period houses listed apart from those about 200k overpriced. One wasn't selling, was subsequently poorly renovated by vendor (crap paint job with shabby 50s/60s kitchen/baths left intact) then put back on for 150k more 🙄

We moved in late 2024 and some of the houses we saw when we first started looking (after accepting an offer on ours) in May '24 are still for sale now with little/no reductions. Many of these are probate sales too. The one we eventually purchased was also a probate and I do think we overpaid slightly, but we were starting to panic as we were desperately keen to move from Wales back to England.

Ours (period cottage) hadn't really been touched since it was last renovated in the mid 1960s - 60s windows, kitchen and bathroom/cloaks, early 80s boiler, ancient plug sockets etc - but the original asking price was not dissimilar to a recently renovated property in the street.

We're considering moving again when ours is finished, but we're seeing no good period houses listed apart from those about 200k overpriced. One wasn't selling and was subsequently poorly renovated by vendor (crappy paint job with shabby 50s/60s kitchen/baths left intact) then put back on for 150k more 🙄 Suffice to say it's still not selling!

Sometimes I think it’s the vendors who have totally unrealistic ideas, and won’t agree to reduce for ages. I’ve know a case locally where it took nearly 3 years! And one of the owners was himself an estate agent!

Because ‘…we NEED that price!’ - blithely assuming that someone was actually going to pay it - which of course they never did.

At the moment there is a neighbour’s house up for sale at at least £300k more than 2 very similar, very nice houses for sale a very short walk away. But the neighbour in question evidently thinks that her own ‘designer’ decor is worth that much more.

Her dd told my dd recently that ‘there’s been no interest in the house’ (sad face) - well, surprise surprise!

If there is nothing in your budget that fits the bill, it suggests your budget simply isn't big enough for what you want.

It would be good if there was an easy way of tracking how much these houses were listed for originally and then the final price they achieve when they eventually sell. Some of the ones I’ve got saved on my list I keep track of but it’s hard going.

I also wish the full extent of the state of the building was made known before putting an offer in like they do with the Scottish system. It would be much easier to figure out whether we could afford it or not, if we understood how much money we’d need to keep back for structural stuff. I don’t want to be five surveys deep before I understand the full implications.

Not exactly, because the more expensive houses aren't what we're after either.

It seems I can have a 3 bed semi or a huge 5/6 bedroom detached but nothing in between.

3 or 4 bed detached houses just aren't coming on the market.

It may be that these houses aren’t even coming onto the market and are selling privately. Can you see any evidence of that in the sold prices?

Yes.

I live in the perfect home for me, have to sell due to divorce. Need and want to stay in this area (co-parenting and schools) and basically need the same house as the one I live in now for £100k less. It does not exist at the moment, there’s not a single suitable property to go and view. Obviously I know it will have to be a compromise but even being completely open to type of house it is non existent. I currently live in a chocolate box thatch and would settle for a 80’s ugly box but can’t even find one of those.

Equally absolutely no-one wants to buy mine either. I’m happy to stay as long as it takes but it means living with ex husband which is hideous.

Literally stuck.

My husband doesn't drive for medical reasons so we're limited somewhat by his job but not hugely so, i.e. we'll consider anywhere as long as there's public transport into the city. Don't care about school catchments or similar.

If you can see what you want, would it be worth leafleting the houses you are interested in, outlining your position?

Make an offer?

We bought a small detached bungalow on a really big plot and eventually did a big extension so we now have a decent sized house on a big plot.

For some potential buyers the bungalow was right, but the plot was too much, and for the people who loved the plot the bungalow was just too small. And it was priced dear for the bungalow because of the plot size. Look outside the box!

@BadgernTheGarden that is the kind of place we are looking for. Large plot, small bungalow. We are going to view one next week. My house is off the market at the moment as we had two failed attempts at a move and I needed a break. Gearing ourselves up to re-entering after a two year break. Not sure if the market is worse, the same, or better than last time. TBF the sale of my place wasn't the issue, but I'm still not looking forward to putting a lot of our stuff in storage and the endless cleans (with four very sheddy pets).

I did a search earlier with double my budget and double the radius from where I am now (which is an entire county and a bit further) and the only suitable house that came up is mine-the one I have to sell.

I am going to just ignore it all for January then give my agents notice and try again in March with someone else. Won’t make any difference I’m sure but what else can you do but hope that everyone else will have a bang to the head and list soon!

I could sell my house for £5 and still nothing I can buy. Unfortunately dickhead ex husband who has only experienced house selling in boom markets seems absolutely incredulous that we don’t have viewings and is insistent that the house will sell within days. I mean we are desperate to escape each other but without divine intervention we’re stuck together for the foreseeable.

We are noseying and keeping an eye out for a unicorn and would only put the house up for sale if we could get the unicorn. We don't need to move, our house is great for us. Our house wouldn't even make Rightmove, it would just go the moment we put it on with an estate agent(3 on the street have done so in the last year despite a dead market). Its 4 bed detached, with drive for 3 cars and half decent size garden. Next door but 3 went within 24 hours of going on estate agent books. Didn't even get pictures taken. The estate agent messaged those who were on their lists, offered viewings that day and it was gone for bang on asking price.

But we could do with more outbuilding space for our on site business. Our garage is currently overflowing and we have no extra garden space to build any more storage. There is a lot on over 600k but they are all probate properties and need a lot of work. Most have been on for years now. The problem with probate properties is the proceeds are often split multiple ways and there is always someone in the process who "needs" the amount they are supposed to be getting from an asking price sale.

I know someone who has a probate property to sell whose sister will not entertain any offers under asking price and absolutely will not entertain any talk of a reduction (despite the asking price been set at peak market 2021 and the house sitting on the market for over 4 years now). If the house sold for asking in 2021 they would each get 150k after all the estate costs have been paid, the sister has absolutely latched onto this and will not budge, she "needs" the 150k as she wants to move house and is intending to put her 150k towards it. My good friend has said it's costing them an absolute fortune in bills and maintenance and also draining time with putting bins in and out, collecting post and ensuring everything still works. The house is getting more and more dilapidated as it's empty lowering the value further. They have had 3 viewings last year and all said overpriced and needed a lot of work. The market is absolutely dead here.

We keep getting leafletted (by companies not individuals) asking if we are looking to sell as they have buyers lined up but don't know how true that is or if it's just fishing.

I think part of the issue is the things we want are at odds with a lot of other people.

I'd prefer larger rooms over more bedrooms and not fussed about things like an en suite. And we're actually after more living space rather than bedroom space so a lot of the houses we see which have an integral garage don't have that.

We've done a lot of work on our current house, but I don't want another project. Updating is fine, anything that required structural work would have to be pretty much perfect to be worth it.

*We bought a small detached bungalow on a really big plot and eventually did a big extension so we now have a decent sized house on a big plot.^

Detached bungalow on a big plot would actually be perfect for us but they're £££ because people want to turn them into large houses!

Do people want bigger better houses? of course

Do people want everything effortlessly? of course

Do people want everything in their 'budget'? of course

Do people want everything to fall in their lap fast? of course

Is that reality? no

Obviously everyone wants the same nice things thats why they are expensive and hard to come by, no one chooses to live in the cheap, small, attached, garden-less properties out of sheer love for those traits, those are compromises.

Compromises always need to be made and it takes time unless your insanely rich.

It took us well over 2 years and 2 house sales falling through and a few gazumpings and a few rejected offers and a few bidding wars to finally find an affordable 4 bedroom and make it all the way to completion.

We lost the one that was detached and ended up semi detached which isn't too bad. We couldn't get the one with a garden but we did by sheer chance get one with a big garage and lots of easy of parking (which wasn't even on our wants list). Its not in the perfect center location we wanted but its no worse than the previous location we lived in (same street). All the ones we looked at where doer ups and we spent £21k on renovating before even moving in as we just can't have it all and the premium on a turn key property is marked up and way out of our reach.

It’s the plot that’s driving the problem for us, I think. Everyone is valuing the plot highly because of the ability to tear it down and build a McMansion, or even just massively extend. That reduces the number of properties available with a decent garden, or at least not to close to the neighbours.
If the plant is a decent size, the house is a bit below par or the price is sky high.

And we really aren’t able to manage significant upgrades to the house.

We got lucky with our current house as although it's on a generous plot, the shape of the plot means there's very limited scope for development so it reduced the appeal for a lot i expect.

Nobody else actually wanted it at all, we saw it the first day it was on the market and then waited 3 months as it was massively overpriced and then offered 15% under.

Yep it’s costing us £300k to modernise our 4 bed. We were gobsmacked at the quotes 😭

Wow, what are you having done? Does that include an extension I presume?