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.

Another so called "boomer" here. We never bought property to make money, in fact we struggled as we've never been high earners and only ever had a small mortgage. I agree that some people did deliberately buy just to make money though - I knew amateur "property developers" who moved regularly and made a very good living doing this.
We did make money from our properties but to us they were mainly simply somewhere to live. We have four adult DC whom we've often needed to help financially in various ways, including university and onto the housing ladder. Most of our friends have had to do this, so none of them are by any means wealthy and simply own their own downsized home now.

1. Oversupply. Developers built loads so there now too much competition for some of the flats with one of the many issues there are
2. Many lenders won't touch flats anymore because of the number of issues with flats. This means they aren't an option for flat time buyers as they can't get a mortgage. They only really are available for cash buyers. Mortgage lenders don't like flats for two reasons; the unresolved cladding issues and the additional charges (service and leasehold)
3. Cladding is still a problem even if you don't have cladding because buildings need safety certificates which require the freeholder to organise and come at cost to leaseholders. If you are in a building where the freeholder and the other leaseholder havent got their act together on this, you are screwed. I think it's anything over 3 storeys that's affected.
4. Service charges and ground rent are a thing for all leasehold properties and buyers generally are avoiding like the plague. These charges tend to be particularly bad on flats too and run into £500 a month upwards and can increase arbitrarily.

I don't think it's about primarily about people not wanting to buy flats. You'd have to be pretty insane to buy a flat right now with these issues so unresolved tbh. It's a complete property trap.

I wouldnt touch one with a barge pole. They make renting look attractive.

If you actually bothered to read my posts, you would see that there were no ignorant generalisations. You have actually managed to make my point that some people in the older generations completely fail to realise how much harder it is for those who are younger than them and then proceed to make a long list of complaints about how tough their life was/is.
I am quite a bit younger than you and have 4 DC to potentially put through Uni, two are there currently. So what? They are my DC and I am responsible for them, jointly with their father. My parents were much luckier as the costs to them were far, far lower and housing far more affordable and the could manage well on only one income, meaning that life was far more relaxed. Life was also more affordable to you than to my generation.
As I said, people are resistant to adult conversations about this.

Exactly. Younger people will be overall far poorer in retirement. Natually, no government gives a damn because they will be long gone. I've said it on here several times but I think it will take a major financial crisis to get rid of the triple lock, which will inevitably happen at some point. The middle aged and young may well see no state pension at all but yet are paying for current pensioner's benefits.

Again, you have demonstrated the problem by saying that you 'need to help' your adult DC in various ways, including helping them with housing. You also say that most of your friends have done the same. Therein lies the problem that we have identified! Most 'Millennials' cannot afford to buy a home to live in without handouts from their wealthier parents. The parents may well not think of themselves as wealthy but they are clearly demonstrating that they are relatively wealthy compared to their offspring. They have the wealth to pass on housing deposits as the young simply don't earn high enough incomes to afford the basics of housing, in many cases. If the housing bubbles had never been blown (and the stock market bubbles too), the elderly would be less wealthy relative to the young. This is exactly why these more expensive properties are not selling and why many never will sell at these inflated prices. In aggregate, there is no way that they next generation can afford them.

We are not planning to see state pension. Certainly DH won't. I might.

There will be a whole load of women who won't qualify for a full pension too because they didn't earn enough to get enough credits.

They will be hammered for mortgage and their parents care and many won't see an inheritance in the end and they won't have been able to afford to put much in a private pension.

The net result will be a generation who don't retire (this is much more common in the US) and retirement will only be for the super wealthy.

Yes, this sort of scenario seems fairly likely- work until you die or are completely incapable. As you say, most won't be able to save enough for retirement and will therefore be in a precarious situation with the state income doesn't materialise.
Many people, usually older people who claim their state pension, don't seem to understand this.
The only thing in your comment that I wasn't clear on is being hammered for their parent's care. Do you mean through taxation or something else?

I'm already seeing a massive gap with our friends in their fifties taking early retirement having paid off the mortgage at 50 but our friends in their fifties mortgaged up to the eyeballs until 67.

There's a vast gap that isn't about working harder in multiple jobs.

We are talking professionals having to work 17 odd years longer at the top end of their career for smaller houses than friends who are just ten years older.

You are not telling me that those friends ten years older started work earlier and worked harder - I actually know when they started work and they definitely have had easier careers with better pensions and much more job security and opportunities so it's bollocks anyway!

Because there isn't going to be enough state provision and their ending up being little alternative - we are going to have massive problems with the sheer numbers needing care. (And you can bet this is why the euthanasia bill is suddenly popular with politicians).

You either give up work and care yourself or you find the money to help fund your parents care.

Or we'll see much more means testing coming in with state care only provided to the desperate and it not being good at all.

My parents have planned for it having had massive issues with my grandmother. DHs parents are saying they are spending all their money so the state can't get their hands on it. However they are high maintenance and honestly they haven't got a clue about state care. DHs brother works in the NHS and has been telling them for years to take it seriously and keep some for that as they simply won't tolerate the drop in quality of life. They are determined that they won't and that they won't care if they ever get to that state but honestly we just think they are utterly clueless and fear what will happen.

You won't retire. You will work until you are signed off incapacitated and then get state support.

It's a really depressing thought.

Anyone under 50, and especially under 45 should really be planning with this in mind rather than expecting to retire at 67.

Many just won't be able to. Particularly if they didn't manage to get on the housing ladder and still have to pay rent into old age.

Actually the type of pension you have rather than whether you own a property is the deciding factor on when you retire. Afterall you still need to live somewhere. Much easier to retire on a DB pension than a DC one.

It is concerning for anyone relying on government support as it could be reduced or even withdrawn at any time.

What age people are you referring to?

Interesting discussion!

We have an £800k+ property we'd love to sell but we're not putting it on the market because the market is terrible and we don't need to, although we'd like to downsize in an ideal world.

Anyone buying it will need to be able to afford buildings insurance of £250 a month, gas and electricity of £300 a month (that's if you don't put the heating on much, it's £££ if you use more gas), council tax of £400 a month, water of £100 a month plus general maintenance costs like gardening, repairs etc as it's an old house and needs constant vigilance. So that's a grand a month before the mortgage, food and other living expenses.

We have an annex that we don't rent out because of the renters reform bill -- we don't want to not be able to remove a tenant if and when we do want to sell. (we originally had an elderly relative in there).

Added to that we don't want to pay stamp duty of £30k plus the additional costs associated with moving.

So we're empty nesters, rattling around in a detached 6 bed family house and we won't move unless the market improves or there is at least some stability.

Not that anyone will want it because of the bills above!

In terms of helping children, we paid for ours to go to university (they have loans but there was no way of living on them so we contributed significantly) and if we ever sell our house we will give them money towards a flat or a house.

But they will still need to be earning enough to pay the mortgage (albeit reduced if we give them £) and that will be hard for sure, because house prices are completely stupid.

When I was in my 20s my salary was £45k and a 2 bed flat in London was £90k so I could afford it at 2 x salary. That same flat is now £400k so anyone buying it would need to earn £100k+ - it's insane.

BTW I realise we are lucky to be able to do all of this but in fairness, we have been working and paying tax for 80+ years between us.

Twenty odd years ago I remember reading a lot of threads on mumsnet about how stitched up young families were. Some of these people must now be going the ‘helping’ with house deposits etc for their DC.

Anyone buying it will need to be able to afford buildings insurance of £250 a month, gas and electricity of £300 a month (that's if you don't put the heating on much, it's £££ if you use more gas), council tax of £400 a month, water of £100 a month plus general maintenance costs like gardening, repairs etc as it's an old house and needs constant vigilance. So that's a grand a month before the mortgage, food and other living expenses.

which are only going to keep going up and why I will never now have a big house!

Perhaps they did find it tight but the crazy property growth in the last 20 years has helped them.

People buying today aren’t going to see the same growth though.

Yes, exactly. Obviously people 20 years ago didn't know what was going to be done to artificially maintain the housing market after the crash. If 2006 MN had known what was ahead, those posts would've looked different.

Do you think people would have voted differently though? I genuinely don’t understand how so many older people with dc and gc voted Brexit knowing the economic fallout to them.

I think a lot of people bought into the bus lies
My aunt and her friends certainly did but then so did my cousin and she was young with babies

I’m sure some bought the lies but I don’t believe everyone who voted leave believed it wouldn’t hurt the economy.

This is quite a good read. Headliner, can’t link

It's no so much that we are all "wealthy" but that we have downsized significantly to free up cash to support our own children which is what most responsible parents would do. We would never have been considered wealthy (and still have a relatively low income) but are in our 70's so are bound to be "more wealthy" relative to the young, but after helping our children our "wealth" is not that different. In our parents day people did not downsize but continued to live in their family home which made up part of their wealth.
We are now living in a smaller home than we ever did since we married - is this "wealthy"?

It means you had wealth. And that wealth was basically formed through a transfer from younger generations to older, because (unless phenomenally unusual) your property was made to be worth much more in real terms than it was when you purchased. This was a deliberate matter of policy, hence we had years of artificially low interest rates etc.

Sure, some of this wealth finds its way to those younger people who happen to descend from the major beneficiaries of the last 20 years. That doesn't change the generational picture, not least because so many don't receive this sort of transfer.

The underlying reason that the boomers had it so good compared to young people these days is the demographic transition.