Houses wildly overpriced near me and NOTHING is shifting

[toffeeapple45]

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.

A couple of local properties were just reduced here 👀

I'd wait until I get a price I'm happy with or I won't sell - it's really simple as that. The people who absolutely need to sell have to take what they can get.

I dont think I have sympathy for either side of the equation.
As in, most people dont have to sell. And most people dont have to buy.

For those that do, that is a different matter.

Yes I think the market is saturated with over inflated prices.
Sellers will just have to wait and wait longer until they cotton on.

Even the reductions (and there are loads) are not realistic reductions. So many overinflated prices and houses sitting on the market for ages at the moment.

Absolutely. Too many people behave as though house prices can only ever go up, but the market now is very different to during Covid times!

We’re in an expensive bit of the south - a house on our street was bought in 2021 for £1.5 when it was newly renovated, and they put it up for sale last year for £1.9, now been reduced to £1.8 but still not a single viewer.

I’ve looked at it and it’s exactly the same as it was, no improvements - it’s madness in today’s market to think they should make £400k in 4 years with no improvement?

They’ve told me they are “desperate” to move and I’ve tried to gently point out that they need to reduce again - a similar property one street over just sold at £1.3. If they want to move they need to accept this one was a bad investment and get on with it, but I doubt they will.

There's a house we wish we'd bought. It's behind us but bigger. It went on and off the market for successively higher prices. Each time it didn't sell confirmed to me they were taking the piss. Eventually they got their high price. Took years. They didn't need to sell; they wanted to but were prepared to wait it out.

Meanwhile back in 2007 I bought my house. Family member decided to rent as they were convinced prices would come down. They didn't. The market stagnated in 2008 then Eventually prices went up. Family member has now rented for nearly 2 decades. They could have afforded a mortgage. They've missed out on a massive inflation in equity values in 20 years. They've saved enough to buy their starter home outright but what a waste.

House prices over time go up. I recommend your parents don't wait about for long renting.

They should make offers and see what they get.

But that is why your parents are experiencing. They want to buy but the sellers don’t need to sell (otherwise they would drop the price). I am selling a house following probate. I need to sell, someone will get a bargain. In respect
of my own home I might want to sell but I don’t need to so I would not be interested in dropping the price unless I had found a bargain to move to.

Round here they’re sitting on the market & then after months & months decide to drop 15K on a £600K house. Yes, because that’s going to make a massive difference isn’t it?! 🥴

What for what? The chances are high that the market will fall further. All sellers are different but, at some point, people end up needing to sell. Apart from that, prices are set at the margins by those who do need to sell.

I don’t understand everyone saying it’s the price - I think even if every house dropped the price the demand for buyers is just not there

@YellowDuck1, I think prices are an issue at the moment - I’m ready to buy, but lots of properties are over-priced and have been on the market for a long time.

Surely it’s a vicious circle - no one buys the over-priced properties, no one thinks houses are selling so they don’t list theirs, committed buyers don’t find their ideal properties…

Are you a FTB?

@YellowDuck1, no, but I’m chain-free.

It’s really frustrating, but hopefully some new houses will come on the market soon.

A few near me have been on at the same price for 3+ years 🤷‍♀️
They obviously aren't bothered about selling, really
Although there are a couple of houses that I'm surprised haven't sold - there must be issues on survey or something
It does baffle me...years ago we offered asking on a house and the vendors promptly took it off the market! 🤷‍♀️
(Glad they did, as we bought a better house for the same price)

Often when you sell you also buy, so if properties are selling there will be more buyers. But only if the price is right.

I’m probably remortgaging but thinking about selling. My house is probably worth £240k but after all the fees and stamp duty I’ll probably need £300k to make it worthwhile.

Near lots of good private and state schools, people want to live here, I might put it up for £300k and if it goes it goes, if it doesn’t we stay. Not everyone needs to sell.

Yes but it doesn’t really work like that as most people selling can’t afford to lose a load of money and end up in negative equity or with hardly any deposit to put towards their onwards purchase. They can’t simply just sell for lower even if they’d like to. So if less people can sell then the pool of people looking to buy what is available is limited to FTB or those without a property to sell. The current problem is much bigger than just the price a house is listed for. Think that’s what everyone is failing to see

Your neighbours benefitted from a market that eventually rose to meet their, initially v inflated, asking price. There is no guarantee that this will happen again. At present, prices are far more likely to fall. In the longer term, there will be a major demographic shift which is likely to put a lid on rises, as well as other factors.
Prices did fall in most areas in 2008-2012. The national average was 20%. Perhaps they didn't wherever your relative was, I don't know. Waiting for 20 years was quite possibly foolish or perhaps they just decided they didn't want to take on lots of debt. Again, I don't know their exact situation.

One of the issues is to do with the dreaded leasehold tenure. Everyone wants a freehold property so this adds to the bottleneck situation. I have been looking for months and the houses that have been on the market for ages, reduced more than once, tend to be leasehold (north west). I feel bad for people struggling to sell their leasehold gaffs.

But the bigger issue is price. In all honesty I’m waiting for a property crash but then that often comes with a bleak economic landscape in general.

There definitely will be demand from buyers at the right place because that is literally how markets work.
I take your later point that some will be unable to move at all if they are in negative equity. That only applies to a small amount of buyers/sellers at present, those who bought with small deposits at peak 2022/23 prices. Most people can afford to move but many are unwilling to drop their price enough to enable this or don't want to because the next pricing bracket up are not reducing (it often seems to be older people, downsizing who don't want to drop). Having said all that, in a falling market transactions will reduce as many will hold off to see if next year is better, etc.

The economic landscape has been bleak for some time and has just got much worse! I sincerly hope that Trump puts an end to his ME war very quickly. If he does, it will cause a rebound bounce in markets and a fall in yields which may cause a v temporary bounce in housing. Even so, recession is built into the cake at this point imo.

Leasehold with peppercorn rent is standard in a lot of areas in the north west, if people won't consider leasehold round here they're going to struggle!

Even people who have moved in the years prior (me) cannot afford to lose a large chunk when you look at the prices of other houses available/the huge cost of moving/stamp duty/interest rates. I can’t afford to lose a large portion of my deposit with interest rates where they are. The monthly payments would be astronomical

Yes. I think it's often the higher value house owners (often downsizers) who are the most unrealitic about price. The value of the properties have come down much more than lower priced ones but some of the owners are unwilling to accept this. Presumably if the next step up reduced more, you could afford to sell your home for less. As it is, unrealistic pricing keeps the market from moving. This is also the case in the US at present- transactions are at record lows because people keep thinking that prices will rise to meet their expectations and others don't want to lose their low rates.