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.

The problem with 'the silly price' is your mortgage lender still has to agree with the valuation when you want to buy a property.

If they decide something is massively over inflated they won't lend you the money anyway.

Not too many people have £800k to drop on a house without a mortgage.

I think it's a bit more complicated. Our NDN have looked off and on for a house to downsize to. Their house is quite big as they were able to do a double story side extension 20 years ago, and they have no mortgage and paid very little as they bought it something like 35 years ago. They would like something smaller and a bit less effort to maintain.

BUT... their criteria are quite complicated:
They want to stay in the "catchment" for their GP because they both have health problems and they feel a lot safer and more comfortable sticcking with the practice they've been with for all these years.

They want a single story house in an area that is almost exclusively double story houses - bungalows are few and far between and, ironically, the few that do exist are in the very very expensive part of the village and, usually, are still very big and/or need a lot of maintenance/modernisation.

On that note, they want a house that needs little to no work to move into because they're elderly and don't have the patience/interest in doing it themselves anymore.

They want to remain on a convenient bus route for town because he doesn't drive any more and while she does, they're conscious this might not always be the case. But we're not well served by busses around here so that's a challenge.

They want a decent driveway and parking space because they have adult children and grandchildren who visit. Adult grandchildren often park on their drive and take the train into work. This is, obviously, not essential, but they vvalue this thing they do for their family so.... I suspect she also wants adequate parking/driveway space because they've had to call ambulances for her DH a few times and she's terrified of them not being able to get access.

So they'd move... if they could. I appreciate that some of these restrictions are of their own making - particularly the preference to stay close to their doctor. But I get it, i really do.

Thought I’d Google for a response to that theory

I’m surprised by the answer which related to properties over £800000

• In the general UK housing market, a large percentage of all homeowners (around 35-37% as of 2023/2024) own their homes outright, without any mortgage.
• However, in specific high-value areas like the prime central London market, cash buyers can account for a much larger share, with reports indicating up to 70% of properties were bought with cash in one period.
• Research from Savills also noted that in the broader prime markets, cash and equity-rich buyers have remained the most resilient group, with only around 23% of buyers in that segment relying on borrowing

Getting a 900k mortgage- even if you could- seems like a very stressful gamble just in case someone lost their job. Who knows what's coming down the tracks with AI. I don't think most people would want this level of debt.

Same in my town

some of them need £££ spending on
them too

its a buyers market but if the economy changes, so will the housing market

Good luck spending just that much in London or on a Cotswolds Grade II 😂

Same near me. They are mostly empty after death or downsizing or moved for care. I think we had a big influx of people from London during and post Covid but that’s dried up leaving these houses overpriced for a smaller market.

I see 3 beds selling and 4 bed semis selling - things under £450k. Not sure where the people moving out of those are moving to as nothing more than that seems to be selling,

@RedToothBrushThe problem with 'the silly price' is your mortgage lender still has to agree with the valuation when you want to buy a property.
If they decide something is massively over inflated they won't lend you the money anyway.
Not too many people have £800k to drop on a house without a mortgage.

This! Friends of mine in a different area actually got an offer accepted on one of these £800k empty houses (for £700k, it had been on the market for over a year). The mortgage lender then valued it at zero because the damp problems had got so bad in the year it had sat empty that it had loads of rotten timbers and was structurally unsound! So they had to pull out and now the house is just off the market, presumably it’ll go to auction for a cash buyer eventually?! But that’s a house ruined because it sat empty at too high a price for too long without being looked after.

I am looking at this price point but in the North West not London. I don’t need a mortgage but do need to sell our current house. I do see the same as OP in that houses in this bracket are not moving. I’m not quite ready to move, don’t have to move and our house isn’t quite as market ready as I’d like it to be. At this level people like us will only pay that price if it is exactly what they want or if it’s a very good deal so overpriced houses are on my watch list to see if they move enough to prompt me into action. I have very particular requirements for both style layout and location but would relax them at the right price. One I have my eye on has been on the market 2.5 years and was reduced by £25k last March - still waiting for it to be reasonably priced.

Ain’t it the truth.

Who in there right mind would borrow 900k against property in the current climate? Not many that brave/daft I wouldn't have thought. Particularly not high earners as they tend to be a bit more savy. The interest alone on that kind of debt would be somewhere around 500k over term. People are become more debt cautious because of rate normalisation. I get your point that the poster "could" in fact buy a 1m house but fewer and fewer fools would do that. Being mortgaged to the eyeballs is pretty life restricting unless you expect the property to increase significantly. I think most recognise those days are over for now and fear that in the short term things could go into reverse. Which it appears might be about to happen

25k in 2.5 years but still on the market is a joke! Id make an offer.

I think it’s because there’s hardly anyone with the funds to afford such a house! It’s going to take years to sell.

It’s just a mortgage calculation showing current affordability based on the pps income

plus they have £560 equity so don’t need anything like that anyway.

So would I.

Fair enough, sorry I read it as a suggestion.

I'm always looking at houses as I desperately want to move from our money pit which is around the 550k mark but there seems to be a jump where nothing is between 600k and 800k.. we could manage around 700.. but there isn't the stock.

I think stamp duty plays a big part and puts people off.

Exactly why we need better options. More two beds with garden, parking, amenities, public transport. We are an ageing population, this problem isn't going away.

In addition, if you have kids you just want it to be done and finished. That's why I'm reluctantly thinking my DW is right it has to be a new build. Thought it it were just me get big and old.

For those looking to buy

Check the news out
There’s a predicted mortgage war coming in the Spring
So you might all get lower rates

Some Good news for the market

Wanting to stay close to gp is my biggest reason for not moving.

It’s entirely reasonable to want this when you have complex medical history.

Thats a generalisation though
We don’t all want to be done and finished when we have kids

I wouldn’t buy a new build if you don’t want to do work. They are often bad quality and you end up doing a load of work you’ve already paid for. And then estate management fees etc

My db had 600 snagging issues on a Persimon new build. Including sewage from other properties bubbling up in his garden !
🤢

Property is not moving in any market, it’s not particular to this one.

To a Londoner any house under a million is a bargain. Houses round me start at 1.5 million. 800k would be a flat and not a terribly big one.