Struggling to Sell our house

[TigersoulBlue]

Hi Everyone.
I hope you don't mind me posting here to get some advice about selling our house, we use an Agent, and its been on the market for 868 days, we have had some interest but nothing enough for anyone to put in an offer. I would be grateful on your views, I have tough skin so please be honest. all the other houses that are very similar in this area have sold for similar prices.
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/148421291#/?channel=RES_BUY

my friend had three estate agents round to value this week they all told her market round here (London commuter belt) is flat and said wait till Feb and put it on then. Quite a few houses round here been on two years, people need to realise property isn’t worth what it might have been in the covid peak.

Are you comparing to houses that have actually sold, or other houses that are sitting on the market?
If youre still getting no interest, it is still overpriced.

Obviously all the three beds including yours are still overpriced, when I said "decent reduction" I meant realistic for the market not just an amount that the seller things is "big", people look at price history in context of higher rates, if you have bumped up the price from a few years ago it won"t sell.

Always confused by what difference "next year" will make, interest rates will likely be higher? I think it is just something EA"s say to get people off the phone and get back to their main bread and butter which is rental now.

Bargain, looks lovely. I would skip the lounge carpet, if that's what it is. The m kitchen is cramped and outdated so doesn't really suit the grander scale of rhe barn as was. Maybe move kitchen into end of living room. I'd do all brick, blaclk and stainless. Well lit. Use kitchen as utility +. So what's putting people off this lovely house is the m kitchen. God even mines bigger than that!

It’s a bit plain bathroom dated but not a desl breaker
but it’ll appeal to a limited market it would be my idea of hell sorry
worrying about it bring the type of place where everyone knows everything about everyone

Starting: It's a farm development building which is a long way from facilities, the grass area is more like a bald field (it is I know). Too much stuff that adults wouldn't need, i.e. child stools for wc etc. Dressing your home is very important. Colourful new towels in the bathroom(s). The quilt cover looks like it could do with pressing. Other rooms look very bare. You can hire furniture, use boxes and covers for beds etc. Kitchen decor looks very "busy", can you calm it down.

All this is minor. It must be very overpriced for the current market.

I was talking to an estate agent and they said the market is the worst they've ever known it. People aren't looking to buy, and sellers are almost all needing to sell due to finances (death, divorce, redundancy, illness).
So a very rough market. Admittedly that's the South east but I suspect it's similar where you are.

The similar ones that had sold recently here when we put ours on the market back in May sold for £415k to £425k which is why we listed ours the same way. 🤦🏻‍♀️

So… what then? I lower my price to the price I paid for it in 2020? And then what? With that little money I can’t afford my onward purchase unless that seller knocks another £25k off as well which I seriously doubt I’d be able to convince him to do as he’s already reduced it a lot.

Right now the house is listed at the same price that our neighbours (and their neighbours) sold at in 2025.

@TheBirdintheCave ”Right now the house is listed at the same price that our neighbours (and their neighbours) sold at in 2025.”

2025 is irrelevant. We are touching 2027. The economy is on its arse, and there will be no growth next year. But there will be worsening conditions for the housing market.
It sounds like you’ve never been through a housing price correction.
Why wouldn’t your onward purchase reduce? They are facing the same issue you are if they have already reduced a lot.
It is what it is.

That little money?? Prices in 2020 were off the scale, the peak of the biggest property bubble in history! Your choices are to get the seller of your next house to lower their price or add money from somewhere other than your house sale, a house isn"t a store of wealth, it is worth only what someone is prepared to pay you for it at any given time.

A lot of people trying to sell now have never experienced a house price correction, or until recently historically normal interest rates.

well, sorry to state the obvious, but at the moment you can't afford your onward purchase anyway because you haven't got a buyer! Presumably they aren't going to wait for you forever and if you're not even getting viewings chances of you selling at your current price are almost non-existent.

I didn’t say we’re not getting viewings. We are. We’ve just had no offers :(

The house we want has been on the market for over a year and has only had one offer (ours). It needs a lot of cosmetic work which we think puts people off. It’s empty and the owner lives next door. The house belonged to his grandparents.

It doesn’t feel like that here. We live on a new build estate and the builders are currently building a new parcel of houses. There are more going up of exactly the same style as ours and they’re being listed at £465k. We bought at £375k. I guess that’s why it seems like so little. Especially for the London adjacent area we live in.

We’re willing to ask our seller if they’d lower their price if we ever get an offer. We just haven’t had one yet.

Priced lower than other houses which also haven't sold. You may be less overpriced than them.

You don't yet know what anything that has sold in the last few months actually sold for, but it's probably far below that. And sold prices from 2024/2025 were in a very different market.

I remember that last correction in 2007 well. We were remarkably lucky as we weren't stretched on the mortgage but several people we knew went into negative equity and people were locking the door, handing the keys to the mortgage lender and walking away....which of course didn't always solve the problem.

You said one viewing a month. That's incredibly low and the likelihood of resulting in a sale lower still.

Sounds like you and your neighbour are both in a stalemate if neither wants to reduce further.

Looking at @TigersoulBlue's listing on Rightmove, they still haven't changed agents (Yopa is always going to deter potential buyers imo) or even lost the photos showing their house in a bad light (eg, the toilets with toddler step things), let alone reduced the price! They obviously don't want to sell....

I agree. They are not serious sellers. Maybe hanging on for a buyer who will pay the asking price?

IF you really want to sell @TigersoulBlue why are you ignoring all the advice here?

You need a new agent, new photos and getting rid of things in some rooms to make them presentable and reduce the price.

You are living in some fantasy world if you think a buyer will appear after 2.5 years and snap it up at the price. If it was worth your asking price it would have sold.

You overpaid - a bigger house on the same site went for less at the same time as you bought yours.

Knock £50K off and see what happens.
Otherwise you are going to have to stay put or reduce your expectations of what you can afford next.

The wider picture though is that these houses are not selling, the developers are banking (literally) on their mates at Labour HQ getting another Help To Borrow scheme going, it won"t work, the bond market is coming for them.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/sales-london-build-homes-plummet-155738365.html

That sounds more like late 80"s crash to me, 2007 they fired up the money printers and dropped rates to bail everybody out (it was aimed at helping the bankers mainly but people with mortgage debt got a freebie) not sure why you would need to hand the keys back in 2007 TBH, this time around they won"t be able to drop rates or print on a grand scale.

@TigersoulBlue If you really want to move, which is questionable, you need to accept it's overpriced. I hate to say it (again) but you overpaid- I'm sure you have looked at Sold prices on RM of the other houses on your site.

That's a tough situation. I'd also caution you about the house you hope to buy. You say it needs cosmetic work and that has put off other buyers.
Maybe rethink that and have a fresh pair of eyes?

If it was just cosmetic issues it would have been snapped up, at the right price.
So it's either NOT just cosmetic, and there is a lot of work needed, which you aren't seeing ( your posts here show you can't 'see' the negatives of your current home) or there is some issue with the location.

If you can , it might be good to link to the house you hope to buy to get another opinion. I wonder if it's an old house if you have had a full survey done? Other prospective buyers might have , unknown to you, and there may be a lot of issues you are not aware of.

Going back to your house and agents/ photos- photo 5 needs to be the first photo. When I looked at your link initially, I thought the entire row of houses was for sale! It does come over as that from the photos showing the entire estate.