Properties on for £800k+ not selling? Why?

[MuckyBrass]

Near me, there are loads of houses on Rightmove for around £800k, £900k, even up to £1m ish which have sat on the market for a year or two. I've long been desperate to move to a bigger house so I check Rightmove all the time, but my budget is more like £600k so I've never viewed any of them, and really I'm just being nosy. They are all lovely houses, I'd buy any of them in a heartbeat if they were on for £600k. I don't understand. Are they really for sale? Or are they just sitting on Rightmove as pretty houses to make the estate agents's rosters look good? Some of them have had their prices reduced by £100k or even more at various points, but they're still evidently not selling at the £800k plus mark.

I'm in a small (but fairly naice) market town with no train station, not an easy commute to any major city, so I actually struggle to think who would be earning enough or have the cash around here to be the actual buyers for houses in that price bracket anyway. We're not talking loads of land, either. These are normal town houses, period properties mostly, small gardens, 4-6 bedrooms.

Yes who's got that sort of money? I'm starting to think property is a bit of a pyramid scheme and at some point the boomer generation sitting in hundreds of thousands (or millions!) worth of housing might want or have to sell up, but the younger generations just won't be able to afford it.

You have answered the question yourself - there’s not a big enough market of people who can afford them.

£800k-1m requires a multi six-figure income to afford, how many families can really afford that? The mortgage could be £4-5k a month.

I see a lot of commentary bellyaching about Home Counties commuter homes in the £1-2m bracket not selling - seems a bit of a disjoint with actual earnings among their traditional target market.

Even those with high incomes aren’t mad enough to commit to these kinds of mortgages - it’s a huge burden.

I think some people still haven’t caught up with the fact that prices are not what they were two or three years ago. Houses are hanging around for months and longer. In that price bracket, the market is more limited.

Imagine spending these eye-watering sums on a property then you get hit with the heating bills too! ouch.

This is true. Friends parent died and they inherited a house worth, on paper, 1.7 million. But they couldn't sell it and couldn't afford to keep it (the IHT installments were crippling). They reduced and reduced, knocking 100k off each time. Eventually sold for £1 million. A lot less that the actual 'value' of the property.

It just goes to show that the saying is true - everything is worth what the purchaser will pay for it.

But why are estate agents continuing to value properties so highly if there clearly just aren't the buyers for them? Are they just chancing it incase a bunch of millionaires one day decide to roll into town? At least a couple of the houses seem to belong to elderly people who have either already moved out into residential care, or perhaps have died (this is suggested from the listings, sentences such as "has been a much-loved family home for 50 years, is sold with no onward chain" etc) so I suppose there isn't an urgent need to sell, necessarily. But then are they just going to sit empty for years and years? It feels like such a waste.

I’ve noticed this! Also, they tend to need a new kitchen and carpets etc.

When we moved several years ago, we viewed one of these type of houses - elderly owners had gone into care, and their children were responsible for selling the house. It had already sat on the market for a couple of years, with no maintenance being done… and it was already a bit of a quirky / odd house, so would need a lot of cash to revamp. But they just wouldn’t accept that no one was going to pay what they were asking. They even got a cash offer for not that much below asking price, but would accept that either.
It either has actually sold now, or just been taken off the market - if someone did buy it, I’d be fascinated to see what they did with it!

People get an idea about their inheritance I suppose and also they think that the estate agent is the expert, so if they're told an amount they'll hold out for it. Even for years in some cases.

I don’t know but I think estate agents must over value to get the client but then advise to drop the price and clients don’t want to because “it’s worth more than that”. Prices are ridiculous now and I don’t know how on earth the younger generations are ever going to be able to afford family homes.

£800k is a weird point. No one under 50 can afford without an inheritance or a crazy job. Yet theres so many houses at this mark now.

They won't sell. Yet demand is high. These houses are prime for being chopped up into small semis - which will make more than double the amount. Its crazy.

The weekly ‘why won’t these fuckers sell their house for 200k less than its worth’ thread. Always always guised in ‘I’m so confused’, don’t be, you can’t afford the house regardless of minimal house price falls.

I went to see a house years ago when I was looking. The owner had bought it some years ago at the top of the market. It was overpriced but we thought we'd see it anyway. It was a nice enough house so I asked the owner if he was prepared to accept less than the asking price. He point blank said he wouldn't accept a penny less. I then asked how long it had been on the market and he said 5 years! 5 years..unbelievable. It's probably still for sale!

Ooh do you have a million pound house to sell? Can I have it for a fiver? No I can’t afford it but my question is why are they bothering to leave their house on the market for two years when seemingly nobody else can afford it either

House prices went up so much so quickly and wages haven’t, plus cost of living crisis, they’ve inadvertently priced the houses out of the local markets. I think it’s similar in a lot of places. But then once the sellers think they “might” get that much, they stick at it because it feels like a loss to reduce the price.

Fewer people can afford the higher priced homes so they take longer to sell - it was ever thus

It just means that those people aren't in a hurry to sell.
Maybe it's the price which would allow them to move to a nicer- similarly unrealistically priced - home.

Many people overpaid a few years ago and now won't be able to move or do anything else.

This seems to be sadly likely

Thought the same thing

This feels like a very astute summary. And I don’t know what it means for the future of the market. Indefinite stagnation? Seems insane in a housing crisis!

Yes essentially. A house we were considering at one point was valued and listed at £1.4m. The washing machine was in a shed in the garden… there was damp and the windows were single glazed (London commuter area). It sat on the market for years because the owner (elderly lady) had already moved to a flat and wanted a big ‘inheritance’ for her children. The agent told us she would not be moved on price. Took 2 years of sitting there before she sold for £1m to someone (not us). If she’d sold faster that £1m could’ve made her another £70k in interest in that time.

You’re right, £800k-£900k seems like a particularly mad price point for a large-ish town house, especially in a small town far from London, where just slightly more than that easily buys you a spacious farmhouse with land.

I think covid did it

It’s the same round me. £800k-1m is a price bracket that the more expensive family homes just seem to sit at. They are normal, though spacious houses, 1930’s type semi’s extended or Edwardian period at the upper end, usually 4+ bedrooms.

That would be the next band up for me if I were to increase square foot (currently live in about 1,000 sq ft) but I just can’t afford to as although I earn very good money, I’m a single parent and in this climate I’d rather not take on a £500k mortgage (I have done in the past).

There are loads of houses near me at this price point - we are about an hour’s drive from London.

A lot of the buyers are cash buyers often from Hong Kong, or they are moving out from London to get more bang for their buck. It seems if you are selling up from London you can easily afford these prices.