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.

This is why we need an annual property tax based on the property's value - to nudge people into selling rather than holding housing as an asset.

These houses need to do what they exist for - house people, not provide inheritance to further wealth inequality.

@BrownTroutBluesAgainWe’re in Enfield, moving out to Saffron Walden. Only need to commute into central London infrequently (DP does need to commute weekly to his office near Watford but that commute is horrible whether it’s from Enfield or SW so much of a muchness really!)

“If interest rates were anything like they were when we moved into our house 33 years ago, I doubt that there would be many people prepared or able to have the enormous mortgages that people today have.”

People don’t have much choice in the matter - if they’re otherwise going to be paying it in rent, they may as well be paying a mortgage.

@BrownTroutBluesAgain Im a millennial so did/do have those things. I always prefer watching something with others as opposed to by myself in my room.

I do agree with this, the market is dysfunctional & as I said really impacts productivity.

Today many don't start work until mid 20s and focus on wellbeing, yet question why they can't afford a house.

Those who own the expensive houses worked minimum of 12 hours and often multiple jobs and started work 8 years earlier.

If the old work ethic was revisited more people could buy.

“If interest rates were anything like they were when we moved into our house 33 years ago, I doubt that there would be many people prepared or able to have the enormous mortgages that people today have.”

You can’t have those interest rates of the past with the current house values and value to salary ratio.

Those who own the expensive houses worked minimum of 12 hours and often multiple jobs and started work 8 years earlier.

Did they? Where did you get that from?

If the old work ethic was revisited more people could buy.

😆

Travelled from Enfield/ Tottenham to Watford for years
Agree by car it’s hell
I was thinking more train commute into London which is great from Watford.
Good luck with your house hunt

< off to nose at Saffron Walden house prices 😁>

Me too
we have room, will swap one of our sons for you 🙏

^This.

We’ve been in a big property boom/bubble since 2001 - so long that people have stopped even talking about the housing bubble, but it’s still there. For years after the financial crisis, when many other countries let their property market deflate at least a bit, ours has been propped up by Help to Buy and all sorts of schemes. Now we’ve run out of road to keep it propped up, and the economic fundamentals are likely to start reasserting themselves. Housing is very significantly overpriced on historical measures compared to incomes; and stagnating incomes means that younger generations just don’t have any means of generating enough future income to pay the prices of the current market. Ironically, Brexit was probably the thing that has topped out the market the most - no way of keeping the market inflated with landlords renting houses out as HMOs to tons of European workers any more.

What inflates eventually deflates, as in every bubble. Only, this time it’s likely to be a grindingly slow and painful process, eventually normalising the relationship between incomes and asset prices at something more like sensible levels. This will probably unfold over the course of a decade, with owners gradually chasing the market down with their overpriced houses until younger people start being able to afford to buy them again.

It’s been a long term failure of several successive governments’ economic policies not to deal with it better on the way up - it’s not going to be pretty on the way down!

it’s interesting because none of the houses that have sold in our part of the road recently have been bought by the sort of people you might think would spend thst much money on a house - they've all been bought by people in fairly ordinary professions, although obviously well paid

Because when people bought particularly in London makes such a difference. Plenty of older people with ordinary jobs have houses worth 1m plus or can buy those houses because of when they got on the ladder. But you need to sell your house to do that & there is a smaller pool now as fewer younger people have that budget. Hence why I think it will be stagnant for some time.

Why should I be forced to sell my home that I’ve renovated and lived in for half my life? It’s our home and we’ve both worked hard from the age of 16 (or 15 in my husband’s case).

@BrownTroutBluesAgain Unfortunately I have baggage now, 2 dc & a DH! 😆

@catinateacup I agree, the can was kicked down the road & now the jig is up. It’s a mess.

Today many don't start work until mid 20s and focus on wellbeing, yet question why they can't afford a house.

This is nonsense. Sure, more go to University, because that's what's required now to get a half decent job. And it's leaving them with high debt levels before they even get started. Those who are lucky enough to get a job, not easy nowadays, start as soon as they can after that. Wages are nowhere near what they used to be.

As for focussing on wellbeing what do you mean by that?

As for why they can't afford a house, that's because prices are out of reach.

< throws flowers of support > 💐💐💐💐

< and waits for gin o’clock >
😆

“The UK has housing costs 44% higher than equivalent costs in similar countries”

This is why younger people are struggling as opposed to not working hard enough…

For us to properly upgrade i.e not just gain a bit in terms of space / area - we would need to spend at least 700k. More like 800k. So won't be moving unless I inherit or win lottery.

Bingo! The very first post on a thread about unaffordable houses mentions boomers. Ah, these people born with silver spoons in their mouths in the postwar years and have sailed through gilded lives ever since and are now selfishly sitting in huge mansions with enormous piles of money. People of all ages need somewhere to live and most people live in fairly modest houses whatever their age.

The younger generation often inherit it though

I can well imagine.
You only need to look on the facebook groups for various developers, to see long lists of disasters. I wouldn’t touch one with a barge pole! Atleast with an older house you can get an independent survey done and negotiate the price if needed!

Yes, good point. We've got a couple of nicely built new estates around here, with SOME flexibility in accomodation, so not as bad as it could be, but definitely nothing that would work for my elderly neighbours who DO want to move. eg the one I like the most has ac ombination of detached houses (a few), semi detached (a lot), smaller terraces and apartments. But nothing that would work for my neighbours who want ground floor with garden (the apartments have no outside space at all). And that's oen of the better options estate wise. The new build estate SIL used to live in is all three story townhouses. Very nice and perfect for SOME people, but not appropriate for many.

Some do. But in order for the market not to be affected, it needs to be enough of them to not only inherit sufficient to buy these houses but also be willing to plough that money into housing.