Struggling to sell flat - what now?

[Wonderbug81]

I have a 2 bed flat on sale in London zone 4. Decent area, good transport links (bus, tube and train) and it's duplex which I did up to a high standard when I moved in. It's a duplex flat across two floors, 860 sq ft so generous rooms and it's a Victorian house conversion.

It went on sale in mid July at £450k on the advice of the agent, similar properties nearby etc. It had all 20 photos and a virtual video too.

We had one viewing.

I've spoken to the agent and he blamed it on a hot summer and the World Cup!

But it's not got better since. He is recommending £400k but that seems a huge jump down and leaves no leeway for price negotiation after survey etc.

Would welcome advice, not sure what price to drop to. I don't think the agent is great but then it's also a tough market.

When you bought at 386k what was the stamp duty and what was the interest rate? you need to factor that in vs today.

I bought at £386k as a chain free buyer and we were all motivated to move fast as it was a stamp duty holiday. The flat was redone by me, new boiler, rewiring, new kitchen ans bathroom, newly painted and plastered and high spec finishes on worktops, underfloor heating etc.

No stamp duty then. I think it was about 4%.

Unlikely many are doing that without family money, mortgage approvals continue to drop.

Yes thanks, £420k to £425k is my instinct and what the agent had originally said to me when I put it on and I asked what was likely to be the reduction if I needed to reduce.

It's N London so prices are higher. Agent considered comparable market and three agents all said £450k at the time.

But yes the market is bad generally.

@KeepPumpingwell lots of FTBs do have family help and often a flat in a “nice” part is the same price as a small house in an outer zone/less fashionable area.

I think the fact you have had only 1 viewing means a 25k reduction is unlikely to do much. It’s is very bad but I can’t see it getting better.

OP you may have thought of this but is it worth releasing equity and renting it out? Even if it just pays for itself for a while and you can still buy with Fiancee? Then when market picks up put it on the market again? Market is not great atm. What are your other options if you have any

I had my house originally listed at £825k and had only one person interested, this was in the ‘discreet’ marketing pre going on RightMove. So when I actually went on, I went for £800k and within a week had 15 viewers. Buyers who have been watching a local market for a while know when something is a bit out of kilter, and just won’t come to view.

£425k might still be a bit much, as it’s true flat prices have dropped. But the fact you have done a lot of work on it counts for a lot, as work is so expensive now.

But look at interest rates when you bought, and the SDH was designed to juice the market for developers, many people overpaid in their rush to secure a property, my opinion is 300k to 350k for this flat now. Are you using apps like PropertyLog to track what other sellers are doing, are you running the mortgage calculations to see how much buyers will be asked to pay for their monthly mortgage debt?

https://www.propertyinvestmentproject.co.uk/property-statistics/uk-interest-rate-history-graph/

Good. It's really bad that such important information and a helpful selling point in your case, hasn't been on there from the beginning.

Good point, that information needs to be in bold letters across the advert.

Is it showing on Zoopla?

Yes! Didn't realise they had the same.

So do you think some people may be looking at that and assuming it's too highly priced vs what I bought it for 5 years ago (even though I've done loads to it and it was a special period with the stamp duty holiday when I essentially got a bargain)!

A good estate agent will state in your description on rightmove that the kitchen , bathroom , and boiler have been recently updated, etc.

Hmm the more comments I see here the less sure I am that the estate agent is good. I told them all those things and none of them are on the listing.

Thank you. Not sure about releasing equity at this point. Did consider renting but not quite at the stage where we definitely want to do that. If it doesn't sell at a lower number will have to consider it!

Thank you, yes all that makes sense.

From what I can tell the house market is very different to the flat market (as we're viewing houses in the hope the flat sells). Did you sell very recently?

We ended up writing our own listing because the one they sent us was so bad.

You should be able to use AI..We couldn't because it was years ago so we just looked at other listings for ideas.

@Wonderbug81what are your circumstances - are you upsizing and are you on a deadline to move? You haven’t been listed long at all. The London flat market in particular is dire, we’ve been trying to sell ours also zone 2 for 14 months. Another flat in the building has finally sold after 18 months. We do get viewings and we’ve had two offers from time wasters (one who said he was a cash buyer and turns out he wasn’t then couldn’t get financing, eg)

The issue is no one has any confidence in where the bottom of the market is and our agent said price reductions arent resulting in sales. the problem with price reductions too is people then price chip on that. But you can still always hold out for what you want and need

If you’re looking to upsize, remember even if you sell low or even at a loss you still will be saving relatively more on your next property because those prices are depressed too. Sell low, buy low

I would also consider appointing another agent. One local and one larger firm. It does help with the viewings

We are going to hold onto ours and move into rented and then decide how much of a loss we are willing to take next year. We have had an uptick in viewings this last week though now the summer is over so hopefully you may see that too!

I really wouldn't rent it out. We sold our rental property last year because of all the new rights for renters.

The current market doesn't support your price increase. You may have added value with new kitchen etc but that's not always recoupable, there's a ceiling when it comes to renovations.

Prices were pushed up by the SDH though? People using a mortgage to buy are looking at the monthly costs on their mortgage debt IMO, they might not be looking at historical interest rates or the "Ten Year Yield" but they can"t have failed to notice that mortgage rates/interest rates have jumped a lot since the absolutely ridiculous near zero rate days. If the flat is nice though, and you have mentioned the ground rent etc. you might find a cash buyer or someone who doesn"t need a big mortgage, but you have to get viewers over the door first!

Quite possibly.

Flats aren't selling because of high service charges.