Houses wildly overpriced near me and NOTHING is shifting

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My parents are house-hunting at the moment in the area close to me, and it's so frustrating. They've sold, but literally every "downsizable" house in my area is on for genuinely I would reckon about 200,000 more than they're worth. I think 2022 was about the peak in my area, but these prices look as if prices had carried on tracking up for the last four years. We're in an area that boomed during WFH, but is not going to do so well as people are ordered back to the office - which is certainly not reflected in the pricing. Nothing is shifting at all, and it's only going to get worse with Iran. Houses are going off the market and coming back on for sometimes, insanely more. It feels like people got their houses valued in 2022 and are just never going to accept that the market isn't there any more. I'm irrationally annoyed with one local estate agent who tells everyone their house is worth X when it's just clearly not the case. My parents accepted less than they would probably have got in 2022, because they figure that is what their house is worth now - and they can rent for a bit and they'd rather not be in a chain. GRRRRR.

With higher rates they can"t borrow enough now, those prices will have to come down.

They are not going to shift these leasehold flats, many will be stuck with them.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-15716157/The-death-one-bedroom-flat-rung-property-ladder-collapsed-sellers-facing-BIG-losses.html

This is why you should never ever blink first
We kind of did this in 2007 because we got wind of what was going on in America
But it hadn’t quite ran out of steam so the person that bought it painted it and sold it for another 65 grand
Frankly, I’ve never got over it

I’m selling my house in that range at the moment. Have had a lot of FTB. It’s surprising.

I see a lot of house and flat sales completing and a good housing market in my area. The ones that sell though are fairly priced and the ones near a station or lovely location seem to sell very quickly.

Anything unrealistically overpriced I think is often people just testing the market. Eg I'll sell if I can get £X for it because then I can get the house/flat I really want in another area. If they don't get the asking price they just come off the market.

A property in the next village to ours has recently sold at a price that would have been ambitious even in the hottest of markets and yet the buyers paid full asking. That was a case of the sellers testing the market without being too concerned if they sold or not. More than ever a property is worth what its worth to an individual buyer and much as a certain hard core band of posters, ubiquitous on this site, want to lump each and every property into one homogenous, doomed group that is simply not the true picture country wide

In my area the market is doing quite well. Great location, great transport links, lots of green spaces, good schools, family oriented area of London. Even the expensive houses are moving, some within a week or two of being on the market. The properties that are much slower to sell are those needing a complete make over. The ones that have been renovated to a decent standard are moving the fastest.

You are right. There are a couple of posters on this thread that appear on every other thread about prices predicting doom and gloom everywhere. And they have commenting like this for a long time. Their comments are not the reality in every part of the country.

@Piletka ”The properties that are much slower to sell are those needing a complete make over. The ones that have been renovated to a decent standard are moving the fastest.”

Agreed. The cost, stress and hassle of doing a renovation, especially as there are less people learning DIY from their dads, is making these difficult to shift.
In an area I monitor, excellent houses with partial garage conversions (1 of 2 built in garages converted) conservatories, modern kitchens and sanitary, quality flooring, double glazing etc, go for 565-595k.
There are also houses that have non of those things, even old wooden windows, on for 525k. There’s no way you can only spend 50k to get them renovated, will be closer or over 100k, and a few months of grief.

"He says the pool of buyers for one bed flats is very small and prices will need to fall further to reflect that."

Makes sense.

Downsizers aren't just competing with downsizers.

I know a lot of mid-agers downsizing too right now.

Bigger isn't better, manageable and sustainable is in.

People are swapping extra space for low maintenance across the board.

The older downsizers don't realise what their up against I think because they think that families are wanting the bigger houses, not the downsize properties. And they don't. Not any more.

Bigger isn’t better ?

This from earlier this year from Estate Agent Today

‘ Upsizers have returned to the housing market and reached their highest market share in almost five years during the first three months of 2026.
FIrst quarter data from reallymoving shows that 70.3% of movers who are buying and selling a property so far in Q1 2026 are upsizing – defined as buying a more expensive property than the one they’re selling – the highest proportion since May 2021

Rob Houghton, co-founder and chief executive of reallymoving said: “The shift from downsizing in 2023 to upsizing in 2026 highlights how sensitive mover behaviour is to borrowing costs

Continued Demand for Space: Buyers looking to upsize account for a significant portion of market activity, with 66% purchasing homes with more bedrooms than their previous properties

Apologies posted the same twice

Interesting

But I'm talking about WHO is downsizing and just anecdotally in my area and amongst my colleagues, there's a whole wave of "young" downsizers. Maybe it's just my "bubble"

Heres some examples:

Newly weds in their 30s. Bought a fixer upper "forever home" to fill with babies a few years back. Recently moved to a 2 bed bungalow because they wanted their weekends back to walk their dogs and enjoy their baby.

Family of 3 moving BACK to a flat. Similarish reason. Fed up of house chores and the climbing expenses of maintaining a house. Plan to travel more and not have all their eggs tied up in the house-basket

A few empty nester midlifers downsizing and not worrying about having space to have adult children to visit. They would rather shout them a hotel than maintain a bigger house with spare rooms.

Another family buying a smaller house with a bigger garden: they want to prioritise the chores they enjoy (gardening) and not throwing time and money at upkeeping a bigger house just so none of their kids had to share a bedroom.

"Downsizing" is a buzzword amongst the 30s, 40s and 50s around me at the moment. It used to just be used mostly in context of retirees

Housing is far too much seen as a speculative investment by too many, encouraged by property programmes (Phil Spencer and Kirsty Allsopp being on tv for 25 years is not something I want to celebrate) and the spivs charter that is the house sale process in England and Wales.

Whether downsizing or upsizing.

This is what I think is changing

Moving "up" isn't the goal for younger buyers. Lifestyle & affordability is, so personally I'm seeing a lot more sideways and downsize moves from the demographic who would have traditionally been desiring the boomers houses

So now the boomer downsizers are up against them as buyers, rather than selling to them

A modest 3 bed semi on my street sold very quickly last month. I think it's the large, pricier houses that will stick.

Interesting
It doesn’t seem to be enough of a big thing atm that might change the stats tho

Along with the stats I don’t know anyone downsizing
Maybe it’s a case of when one person you know does it it makes others think
🤔

Yes maybe.

I have quite a big workplace and it might be like that, one person does it and others think "good idea"

I sold my house which was a 4 bedroom semi - large kitchen - 3 reception rooms house earlier this year. It sold quite quickly as its in popular village. I am downsizing and ended up breaking the chain to go into rental to put myself into a cash position as I was competing with FTB no chain. This was pre Trump bombing Iran but there was alot of competition for smaller houses which required little maintenance/decoration.

DH and I are 33 and trying to upsize currently. We have a baby on the way and our 3 bed end of terrace just isn’t a family home. We have a galley kitchen, a lounge/diner and wc downstairs and the master, two small singles and a bathroom upstairs. We also only have parking for one car which is wearing…thin.

I have no idea where we would put all the crap that comes with a baby in this house, or have a nursery that actually allows us to get some sleep (space for a cot and a bed for one of us if needed).

To us that IS lifestyle. The house we have just offered on is a sensible purchase - it’s still a three bed, but detached and three doubles, with a much larger downstairs, driveway and garden plus a couple of outbuildings that have potential for development in the future. All in all we will get another 60sqm of space indoors even though it is ostensibly still just a three bed, if our offer is accepted 🙏🏻

There is very little shifting though, or even coming to market. This house is the only house of its kind available and we missed out on it the first time. We don’t want to stretch to the top of our budget, we don’t want a new build, and we want to feel like we are genuinely upgrading so I really hope this works out because there is nothing else we like.

We have sold STC to a FTB after about 9 weeks on the market. We had to reduce the price and then it sold quite quickly. People have an overinflated sense of what their house is worth - we considered another one which was on at £485k (price of a 4 bed detached here) but it is a 3.5 bed semi which on closer inspection needs a lot of work doing to it through bodged DIY “improvements”. They reduced to £470k a month ago, no takers. We offered £450k but they seem to think they can get more.

What I will say though is DH and I are absolutely not up for a project house. We looked at one which incredible potential but then decided we probably needed £100k to do it up properly and the vendors had it priced as it if were turnkey - another example of the arrogance and greediness or some house sellers.

There used to be a prolific poster on the MSE forums who had been confidently posting that there was going to be a housing crash any time soon from about 2012 to 2022. Every world event he said was going to lead to said crash and he mocked posters for choosing to buy a house in the current climate. Since then we had Brexit, Covid and everything in between and house prices still trended upwards. Someone worked out he had spent the cost of a starter home in their area on rent in that time.

I think some people think they can magic a housing crash into being by posting it on internet forums and arguing it on social media. The best time to buy a house, is the best time for you.

Same with having babies in my experience 🤣