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.

"Overall there are far more people who want to live in London than there are houses."

I find this very unlikely TBH, people can work from basically anywhere nowadays in many jobs, and there is a very negative attitude towards London now, safety, crime, too much immigration, too expensive etc. etc. that didn"t really exist say in the 90"s when London was considered "cool" and a desirable place to live. I think there are more than enough houses/flats in London to cope with demand, in fact there has been overbuilding as developers hoped the cheap credit boom/mass immigration would go on forever (or at least a few years longer)

https://londondaily.com/london-new-build-home-sales-plunge-to-lowest-since-financial-crisis

London has a housing supply crisis. 1 in 5 of all U.K. private enters are in London. We are supposed to be building 88,000 annually to comply with government plans to get 1.5 million houses built nationally, yet housebuilding has fallen by 84% since 2015.

Currently the planning regs are being torn up to facilitate building and so is the green belt.

Housebuilding has fallen because demand is lower than financial crisis levels, working people can"t get out of London fast enough and banks don"t give mortgages to people on benefits. When the anti mass immigration thing gets properly rolling (Reform government in all probability) then BTL in London will also get hammered, landlord insolvencies in the UK are already up 28%!

https://www.plumplot.co.uk/London-property-transactions.html

working people can"t get out of London fast enough

Sure, Nigel.

Isn’t London the only major city in the UK that’s getting older because young people aren’t coming/are leaving & families are having fewer dc

Housebuilding in London has fallen because of: land costs; construction costs (rise of 34% in 5 years) which eats into GDV; decrease of overseas investors and buyers since Brexit & Covid; relatively high interest rates and and mortgage costs; end of Help to Buy; relatively high Affordable Housing requirements (35% compared to national average of 10%); lack of capacity from Affordable Providers (eg HAs); Building Safety levy which will start next year: Residential Developer Tax which adds 4% levy; complex slow & costly planning processes; landowners not willing to drop prices - sitting on the land in current slump; Building Safety Act - ie new requirements for residential buildings over 18 m, which need regulatory approval first etc; finally - new builds have become less affordable - pricing in London is now 7.8% higher than 3 years ago, compared to 0.3% generally, and in the past year new build prices have risen by 3.4%, compared to 0.7% generally…

......and everyone viewing a house to buy or rent in London still already lives somewhere.

Which is true of everywhere. Not sure what your point is?

I'm sure it depends on your specific area but generally that would be v unusual.

It's not just a quick google. It's selling prices over a few years from the Land Registry. It shows major declines. That's v clear. It can't, of course, show your one road or your very small area in London. I'm sure some areas are rising, although that may well tail off this year, but to say that all properties in London between £1- 5 million sell quickly and that all London detached property prices are still rising is quite clearly incorrect. The opposite is, in fact true in general.

Overall, the demand for London housing has been decreasing, especially in the last few years. You suggest that the demand from international clientele hasn't been affected but it has. Badly. That's one reason for the huge, 30% fall in prime London. Other countries are being affected by an economic downturn; it isn't UK specific. Demand has also been reduced by the government freezing Russian assets 4 years ago when London has historically been the money laundering capital of the world!
Reduced demand is the main reason why building has stalled nationally. Demand relative to the cost of building just isn't there.

I'm not sure about that stat but it wouldn't surprise me at all. I've seen reports about schools in London, and even some elsewhere, needing to close because of a lack of children. Families have been leaving London in general for some time because of the cost. Private schools, not just in London, are starting to close.
I think some people just haven't realised that things have changed and will continue to change.

@rainingsnoring

You quoted average selling prices for the whole of London - which is a massive place. Do you understand how big it actually is? And how different and diverse the areas are?That gives no nuanced area specific data.

I have not disputed the stagnation for selling prices in general. I simply explained to you that properties in good areas of London in the £1-5 million bracket still change hands fast nonetheless.

Nor did I say all detached London property prices are rising, I said detached property prices in MY area have risen in the last year despite general stagnation.

Nor have you correctly quoted me on foreign buyers. I said there is less foreign investment and buyers than pre Brexit and Covid but there are still high numbers nonetheless (comparative to other areas of the U.K.).

Have a look a my local Savilles and see how many properties are currently under offer. 9/36 currently are under offer ie 25%. Link

Reduced demand is not the reason London house building has declined. I summarised reasons for that in my post above at 17.07. In fact, London house in crisis - there is a severe shortage and availability of homes is at a historic low. One of the issues is lack of new builds.

Have you ever been to London?

@rainingsnoring is correct about falling school rolls

www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/london-school-pupil-exodus-falling-rolls-westminster-lambeth-southwark-b1249549.html

Which is a nationwide issue across the U.K. as birth rates decline.

And if you read the link - other than falling birth rate London primary pupils are moving within the city or leaving the state education altogether as well as moving elsewhere.

London is feeling the impact more than the rest of the UK but the issue is nationwide.

I work in education in London, it’s a big problem due to the funding model.

What a silly question. Why would you assume that someone who disagrees with you could only possibly disagree because they have never been to London?! 😂

Disagreeing is not the issue, it’s the inaccuracies. You don’t seem to know much about it.

That's just not true.
This is what you said (direct quote), hence my response:
'That’s certainly not true in London. Properties here in the £1 to 5 million bracket sell quickly. Even in the recent slowdown detached property prices are still rising.'

If you had qualified your statement by saying in my area small area, that would have been different.

If you look at that data, it does divide London into areas. Clearly, dividing the stats by road is not possible. I know Barnes-I've a friend who lives v near there. No one has said that no one is buying in the whole of London or that no area is rising in the whole of London. Overall, though, prices have clearly fallen in most areas.
I haven't denied that there are more foreigners wanting to invest in London compared to the rest of the UK, merely that there are less than there were. That's what counts and why prices are falling.

You know much more about it from a 'boots on the ground' perspective then.
It has been widely reported in the media though so I thought a lot of people would be aware.

Many parents think it’s a good thing that a class of 30 is now 22, but it really isn’t! Your dc won’t get more attention they will be losing resources.

I can read, observe what is happening economically and socially and see the land registry statistics. That website uses the raw data and you can search by type of property and area. I'm pretty sure the LR data, even though it is 6 months behind transactions or so, knows more than one person living in Barnes!
It's v amusing that you assumed I had never been to London and didn't realise how diverse it is.

I'm not sure about London school funding specifically, though I believe they do better than the regions. As you say, the funding will be cut even more, having fallen for years already. I've seen and heard of quite a few TAs and teachers losing their jobs recently because of this. It's a v bad thing from that perspective too!

What are you arguing about precisely?

I haven’t assumed anything I simply asked you a question.

You know much more about it from a 'boots on the ground' perspective then.

Well quite.