Is anyone on the market but having zero interest?

[rootsandwings89]

We put our house on the market a month ago and only had 1 viewing so far :( our estate agent says the market is very nervous and nothing is moving …. Anyone else in the same boat?

We’ve had 2 more but no offers, we have another this week but we don’t even get our hopes up now

I agree, what in your opinion are the demographic “challenges”.

Exactly this:
'The whole buying a doer upper model has collapsed when the cost of work and materials is so high'
I've made this point on here several times before.
The type of house that seems to hanging around on the market the very most seems to be the large, detached, in great need of an upgrade type home, obviously owned by the elderly or possible now a probate sale.
Younger people mostly can't even afford the asking prices for these large homes (far too high relative to incomes), never mind the ££££ for work. They just aren't budging and will need to reduce a lot to sell.

The main challenge seems to be that there are far too many elderly relative to workers now and that the situation is only going to get worse. It's a problem across so many other countries too, as I'm sure you know.
Wrt housing specifically, younger people en masses simply can't afford to be all the older people's houses at their current price tags. Imo, this will, over some decades, put negative pressure on pricing of housing, in combination other factors that I've mentioned before (economic, inflation, rates).

Property prices in London and the South East has been overheated for many years.

Companies have been moving to the South West, the Midlands eg Birmingham,
and the North for around 10 years, so people have been able to sell their properties and get better value for money in a less crowded area such as Bristol, Cardiff, Swindon and Gloucester. I have been noticing the prices creeping up year on year because of this migration but if I look at the cost of housing in the Home Counties where I used to live, it's still eye wateringly expensive compared to property in the west.

the Geopolitical situation is having an effect, but the credit crunch, the Truss disaster, austerity all impacted people's ability to move, but they still did. It's like during war, you'd think everything would stop, but you can guarantee people will still continue to have babies. None of us want to put our lives on hold waiting for the perfect time to do things in life, we have to just find a way.

housing specifically, younger people en masses simply can't afford to be all the older people's houses at their current price tags. Imo, this will, over some decades, put negative pressure on pricing of housing, in combination other factors that I've mentioned before (economic, inflation, rates).

Many of the big property developers such as Bellway, Churchill, in the area where I live are doing schemes to encourage First Time Buyers and the next tier up to buy a new property eg discounts, plus building FTB sized properties so people can get onto the first rung of the ladder. People just starting out arent going to buy "older peoples":properties (normally 3-4 bedrooms), they'll start smaller and cheaper. My first property was a tiny two bed maisonette.

Yes of course but I said 'younger people', not young people. I wasn't talking about FTBs! I'm saying that people who are looking for larger, family sized homes, usually in their 30s-50s, can't afford the large homes of those in their 60s/70s/80s. Just to clarify further, there are individuals who can, but I am referring to the aggregate effect.

Yes it true that there are too many elderly relative to workers now, and the salaries of those workers just do not reflect the cost of housing.Added to which the squeeze on jobs is pulling down the ability of people to afford housing in the first place.
I believe there are even less first time buyers now as they simply can’t afford to buy whilst paying high rents and all the increasing cost of living.
This then affects the mover uppers who can’t sell, unless of course they price lower and then they are stuck if the next price band doesn’t reduce as well.
i believe, correct me if I’m wrong, something like one in three house sales fall through at this time. I believe this is due to the high cost of housing along with our fragile economy.

That will only be a very few homes though compared to the need nationally.
It doesn’t address the nationwide failure to secure housing because of the high costs of property.Whilst housing is so high it isn’t going to get any better.
Unless salaries all double (which isn’t going to happen) then the only way is down on property “values”

I'm not sure of the stats on FTBs. The average age for FTB purchase has definitely gone up a huge amount though. I think it's 34 now!

I've seen lots of comments on here from people who can't sell their home. although they have had some interest from people who also can't sell their own home. This does suggest to me that prices need to fall across the board for the market to move better. I agree with you about the likely causes of increased fall throughs. I had a quick google and found this which talks of 58% fall throughs in their survey:
https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2026/05/almost-six-in-10-transactions-fall-through-after-offer-stage/

The US housing market has apparently been frozen with record low levels of transactions for some time now. The NZ and Canadian house prices have fallen a lot already and continue to fall, despite negative gearing being reintroduced in NZ. The Chinese market has fallen a lot over several years. Even Australian prices have started to fall in some areas. It seems quite a global picture. I could be totally wrong but I don't see this changing for several years at the very least.

People are viewing, that is a positive, and it is only a month, that is another positive, property doesn"t "fly off the shelves" anymore.

Yes I think I have seen something similar.
I believe we are in tanker reversing territory.
There is a short while it stands still not going forward, or in this case prices not continuing to increase, and just sitting there until the tanker starts reversing in full or in this case the drops in prices pick up speed.
It will be a little while till a drop begins properly.

Increasing numbers of people have had to rent for years, so FTBs may well be in the age category you've mentioned, certainly in their 30s and 40s.

Anything near the 2m mark in my area isn’t moving.. surprise surprise, including my neighbour’s who’s been on the market for 6 months.

That's true. It's become so much more expensive to buy a home that the average age has increased and increased. It only strengthens my argument that these large, expensive house will need to come down in price!

It will be very welcome though when it does eventually pop.

I just think there are too many houses.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/general/british-brickmaker-closes-its-139-year-old-factory-after-house-building-collapsed-across-country/ar-AA23Ob2h