Anyone else finding it difficult to sell a larger family home?

[Pickleandwhizz]

Anyone struggling to sell their home, ok we have only been on a month and ive not moved for the last 15yrs. We are trying to downsize, we have a 5 bed detached in its own plot with double garage, brand new kitchen and boiler only fitted few days ago, log burner, its a 1980,s home so all the rooms are large, ive parking for 8 cars. Its was initially on for 425 but we reduced to 410, we are happy to take 395 for it but people who come love it yet they cant afford it, they want it for 375 but if i sold for that we couldnt buy what we want. Estate agents are saying people want something for nothing and its because they cant get a mortgage. Anyone else trying to sell?

Where I am (Scotland) the issue is new builds and all the incentives available.

I don’t think it’s because it’s a larger home. Houses with 4/5 five bedrooms worth much more than that sell all of the time. Are you sure there’s nothing else going on? Even if the house is lovely, what is the location like, schools etc.?

I posted my house on here when I was trying to sell and got some brilliant feedback about presentation. I think it really helped me sell it. Would you be happy posting a link to yours?

Even new builds are struggling here in Wales but older new builds are flying off the market.

My husband and I were talking about this the other day. It feels like the market has stalled where we are. There are multiple 4 bed properties that have been on the market for a few months and don’t yet have an offer accepted. But previously these types of properties are hard to even get viewings at as they go so quickly.
It’s the way the housing market is at the moment. I guess people don’t want to be taking out mortgages with high interest rates at the moment.

Your house is worth what someone will pay for it. Prospective purchasers aren’t bothered what price you need to achieve for your onward purchase. They will offer what they think it’s worth in the current market.

People do want something, perhaps not for nothing, but for a very keen price. It’s a buyers market and if you’re needing to sell, you have to accept that it may be for less than you hope. Whatever you buy will probably have to reduce too. In my area, developers are reducing the prices of their houses and offering incentives. Unheard of before, but they need to get the stock sold.

If older new builds are flying off the market there is something about yours that is stopping this from happening. It’s either over priced or there are faults with the house and/or area.

I get that if people cant afford then they will not buy but people are not going to just give away a home just because people cant afford it, there has to be some realism if there is no where for us to go why would i sell it, we want a 2 bed but they are on for over 300. Guess im staying put. People look like they are sitting it out til the market gets a grip.

There's many different ways of looking at price expectations, essentially the buyers out there for your house are prepared to pay 95% of your target price. Are you certain that the £20k difference can't be offset with the property you want to buy?

Given I would need to buy something in the same vicinity when I looked at downsizing it just wasn't worth it given the stamp Duty and fees I would have to pay so I'm staying put in a big house at the moment.

Looks the same here, we will stay put. Maybe try next yr. Nothing in our area is moving at all, there are many overpriced homes on whjch have been on for over a yr. A lovely 2 bed came on and the estate agent said they have had offer but its not sold so guess they were offered low ball and sitting it out. Market is at stalemate.

Families can no longer afford to upsize. CoL, frozen salaries and job insecurity mean that far fewer people can guarantee getting onto the next or final rung of the ladder, which a 4-5 bed detached house is.

There's a gorgeous house in our village been on for over a year at a fair price. A neighbour's house was overpriced but has since dropped and been on for two years - similar size to yours.

I think perhaps they will have to do something about stamp duty soon in order to get the market moving.

This is the situation I used to my benefit…absolutely fell in love with a larger new build, but couldn’t afford (or actually justify) the jump in price. Held off for a couple of years and the same new builds of the house style I wanted were coming in the market, significantly cheaper than the original new builds price. And they’re been through snagging process too. But it’s a challenging buyer and seller market all over I think.

Without seeing it it's difficult to tell but if it's a 1980's house then there are possibly a number of issues:
Style - just out of fashion. Only you will know if other houses locally of a similar design are selling
Energy costs - what rating has it? Solar panels, insulation, how old is the double glazing
Decor - people in my experience fall into two camps. The unicorns who can see the potential in a house and those who have zero interest in doing much of anything
Are the bathrooms and kitchen dated in style?
Do the bedrooms have lots of built in furniture?
Do the bedrooms have patterned fitted carpet and or colour themed like blue and pink?

If it's big stuff like kitchens and bathrooms don't underestimate just how expensive these are to do now. It's staggering. Your EA should be able to tell you whether your price is realistic for the local market or whether you are comparing your price to a house down the street that had a modern extended kitchen with all the bells, whistles and sliding doors.
If you can simply update a room by breaking out white paint, decluttering old dated furniture eg desks from kids who left home years ago, and simple curtains from Ikea then I'd recommend you do that if you'd like a quick sale.

Well only people in your area can really comment. If I tell you that two flats in my road have just sold quickly for more than you are asking that doesn’t explain anything. Yes in general people can’t afford the prices and also massively disincentivised by all the worry about falling prices. Yes. Stalemate. But anything will sell at the right price.

We sold a 4 bed detached after 3 weeks on the market a couple of weeks ago. Personally we have found sellers are being unrealistic with prices.

Nearly anyone under 40 has been royally screwed on wages and housing costs.

Wages have been stagnant for decades. Central banks in the West meanwhile have kept interest rates too low for too long, inflating ‘asset prices’ such as property.

That has meant that anyone after Gen X has paid too much of their after tax income on housing costs, stopping them from saving enough to go up the property ladder. Or from investing in other parts of the economy.

Now that some baby boomers are ready to downsize, they’re struggling to find a ready pool of buyers because younger folk are too broke and they don’t have the equity to upsize or even get on the ladder.

The bad news for baby boomers is that there is no wealthy pool of buyers waiting to lap up their assets.

If someone will pay you 375 then you can buy your nice 2 bed for 300.
So what s the problem?

(Who needs parking for 8 cars???)

You will be surprised, bigger families with older children who all have a car, people have motorhomes, caravans etc

Tbh until you’ve actually got a formal offer for £375k I wouldn’t count on that either - talk is cheap.

Big houses are expensive to run. I have in mind that as and when dp dies I will probably not be able to afford to run our current house. But if I had to sell right now I’d be fairly stuffed - I’d probably get a lodger instead.

Have a look around for the kind of thing you’d like to buy, but it’s true that cheaper places are more likely to sell at the moment for all sorts of reasons.

’The property ladder’ doesn’t exist any more. I still think it’s worth buying a place to live but tbh only if you are pretty certain you will live there for at least 5-10 years. Prices are falling with greater supply, along with CoL and stamp duty. It’s what everyone has been saying should happen for a long time but nobody likes it when it affects us.

Larger house have always been harder to sell here. we looked to upsize and it was the larger that were the best value in per square meter but that nobody wanted.

An average sized family house with smaller gardens, space for a couple of cars is enough. These sell quickly and for nearly the same amount as the larger houses. Maintenance costs, running costs, time needed to maintain gardens, drives and the house, costs to refurb - all take much more the larger the house is.

And the birth rate is falling.

Hardly worth it moving tbh if that is the price of a two bed compared to a 5 bed.

Where I live stuff comes on all the time. The reasonable prices sell very quickly. The ones even a smidge over do not. Try to remember just because the EA says that's what it's worth, doesn't mean it is. We recently remortgaged and the lender valuation was significantly lower than an agent.

Where I am, all of the more expensive houses with more than 3 bedrooms have been on the market for months.

Variety of ages from 80s to 2010s.