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.

Given that we are in the SW, and quite rural, nobody who wants to commute daily to London is a buyer. But I used to go to London for work, sometimes twice a week, and while it was a very long work day it was manageable.

I’m guessing another retiree is your marker then. Long commutes with children are manageable, but they are also a strain. Anecdotal but my colleagues who left London are returning to come closer to work

@Papyrophile your house sounds gorgeous. As for buyers, I suppose it depends on who you think your market is. Maybe people who can work hybrid? but that's more of a gamble these days, especially to have to wfh 3 days. So would it be retirees buying or just wealthy people who live locally or upsizers locally? I guess the smaller this pool of people then the longer it could take to sell and it really depends on a lot of factors.

What's the type of house people locally who might upsize would live in and how much could they sell for? I'd say where people already have a reasonable sized house, you have to factor in that their mortgage might have gone up since Liz Truss so those people might not be able to take on a lot more debt?

Only that I think the initial point was that homes were affordable on one income and that even a low paid man quite often had a non working wife. Domestic work needs to be done regardless of paid employment and isn't an optional thing for most people. I do agree that the majority often falls to women, even nowdays.

That's simply not true though is it?
Giving up the odd takeaway and package holiday simply doesn't add up to the sums required for deposits and mortgage payments now. The maths is straightforward. Clearly housing was affordable during that period because most people were able to buy, often on only one salary. You have proven yourself that it is not affordable to your DC's generation as they have been given financial help on multiple occasions. Your friends have apparently done the same. Were all the DC benefit claimants who refused to work or was there something else going on in terms of affordability?!

I disagree. It was the constant grind of paying the mortgage and the lack of any spare cash at all.

The best of luck, good houses do sell even today at the right price.

How does that grind show us anything about affordability of 800k homes now though? It's a big claim you've made about what others could pay.

If you're buying an 800k house you're not going in with no deposit, and you're not likely to be that young. It's quite likely that buyers would have two decent salaries so could cover a hefty mortgage.

It's interesting that posters have also written about the problems of long commutes for those with families. There used to be sites that took the cost of commuting into account vs the cost of housing, for most people there was a sweet spot where the commute wasn't too expensive and time consuming and the cost of the house was affordable.
We both worked in London and I think that one really major difference was that in the 70s and 80s we could still afford to live in London which we certainly couldn't have done today, though prices in the home counties commuter belts are affordable for many. The cost of childcare in London (particularly pre-school) is so high that it more or less rules out working parents living here unless they are very high earners. When my children were small there were almost no nurseries and no after school clubs, so we had to rely on childminders and many people (mainly women) didn't go back to full-time work until their children were at full-time school. Holidays were a nightmare.

Selling our house is not going to be quick, unless it takes the fancy of a consultant doctor with a professional wife who also works. There are no other jobs paying a high enough salary. It is that cut and dried.

We wondered who would buy our expensive last house but we only had two viewers: one young couple with children and two professional salaries, and one semi-retired medical couple. This was five years ago and I think that we would have had more trouble selling it now, though it was in absolutely move in condition and their suveyor didn't find any problems with it.

My house is in that bracket. Been on the market for many months now. Not going to drop the price because we aren’t in a rush to move. If no one wants to buy it fine. If someone does, amazing. In five years the market may have come back by which point I will have even more equity and options as the plan is to downsize.

Someone who buys an 800k house hopefully can afford it yes. We're talking about the people who aren't doing it, some of whom you reckon could afford it with different life choices. How you organised things when your kids were young obviously doesn't relate to affordability in 2026.

I'm obviously saying that it's easier to have two salaries coming in today than it was then as childcare wasn't available, which enables you to have a larger mortgage.
And there are always people who'd like a house that costs more than they can afford or ever will be able to afford. They may well feel that the houses they'd like to buy are overpriced, but unusually at the moment this could be true.

That's the case for everyone with a mortgage but the difference is that the levels of debt to income are now far, far higher, a point that has been made repeatedly throughout the thread, hence these more expensive homes not selling! Luckily for older people, many had much shorter terms, 20 or 25 years compared to 30 or 35 or even 40 now and buying in the mid 20s rather than mid 30s often now.
All the points that you have made back my points up rather than anything else.

It's sounds like a wonderful house. I think your problem in terms of selling will be a much smaller market than if you had tried to sell in 20-22. There are far less rich people buying second homes now, due to rises in tax, less people able to WFH anywhere in the country and people generally have less income free and rates are a lot higher. What is the average income in your area (I expect it's pretty low as it is in most parts of Cornwall)? Could your home be bought by anyone local, working locally or would it be too expensive? Prices in Cornwall, at least for high end properties have definitely fallen. Of course, you may be very lucky. Someone well off may fall for the view!

I think in my Midlands town that houses at this price are often on the market because of probate or elderly moving into care/down sizing. It is often the main inheritance asset for children and they are very reluctant to feel their inheritance is being 'stripped' due to buyers offering less than the worth they perceive it as. Often the houses have shabby old fashioned interiors that require a lot of refurb.

Houses maybe aren't the best assets for long term investment as well; we should be looking at them for what they are, places to live.

This just doesn't say anything about what people can afford today though. It doesn't remotely take enough things into account.

This is a low income area, like most of Cornwall @rainingsnoring . Three years ago, it would have sold fast; now, we're expecting it to take much, much longer because the second home market is dead. But if not now, when? We're turning 70 this year so the time is now, or perhaps never.

That's what I suspected. I don't think any areas of Cornwall are not low income!
Given that you haven't/couldn't sell earlier, I would get on with it asap if I were you but I do think you will need to price it quite a bit lower to get interest than if you were selling in 21/22.

We always assumed we would do one more move when the kids were teens. The house is great for younger kids with a large downstairs but small bedrooms. We could afford the increased mortgage repayments of a house in the £800K range but the stamp duty is prohibitive: I’d rather my teens make their smaller bedrooms work and we have savings towards Uni/ future home deposit for them. We’ve invested a little in getting the best storage we can to make it work, but otherwise saved £££ on stamp duty, legal fees and moving costs

If you think about it, so many things have contributed to people not being able to afford bigger houses in the past 10+ years:

House price to income ratio is obviously the big one, for sure
But also, mortgage interest rates went up (our mortgage trebled)
Gas & electricity is ridiculously expensive
The cost of living general is ridiculous
VAT on school fees (buyers of £800k houses probably want private schools)
Childcare is expensive
Everything is expensive

That's a good point @Irememberwhenitwasallfieldsroundhere with these big houses, there's not only the costs of maintenance which are so high, but they also must cost a fortune to heat these days.

Definitely. In one area I've lived previously, there are lots of lv arge, beautiful Victorian villas. They haven't been selling since 2022, as they are consistently priced far too high (probably 30% too high) and have become far less desirable due to the high energy costs and other high running costs. The owners are clearly convinced that they will sell but they haven't for years and just go on and off the market, trying out every agent in town to see if the outcome is different with minor price reductions only.

Financial markets expected to kick off tonight and tomorrow over Greenland, it could get a lot harder to sell houses for 800k IMO.