looking at previous asking prices on rightmove

[Ecci]

We've had our house up for sale for quite a while, with what has proved to be a shit estate agent. We had sold it twice and both times fell through because of things unrelated to our house.

The estate agents only marketing ploy was to tell us to keep reducing the price even though we were getting viewers and offers, although some of the offers were very silly.
We're changing to a different agent and want to increase the asking price.
New estate agent has advised against this because he says people will look at asking price changes when considering whether or not to view a property and that if they see it's increased it will put them off.
I've looked at hundreds of houses on Rightmove and I didn't even know you could do this. Turns out you have to download a browser extension to do it.
Is the estate agent right? Do people really consider previous asking price changes before deciding to view a property?

It's a falling market in many areas.

Your previous changes in price may be visible. Not sure how it works at the minute but I've seen previous listings when deep searching a particular property.

I'd leave it off line for a couple of weeks then put back on at the higher price.
Some people may seek out the history, many won't. A house near me has jumped from agent to agent with reductions and increases and sold for quite a lot more than it had been advertised at around 9 months before.
If people like it and it's a sensible price then they will offer.

You can see the price reductions on Zoopla. Not everyone is going to look at that website though.

Yes I look at Zoopla for previous sale prices and, sorry to say, I absolutely would be put off by someone increasing the price after not selling for a few months, especially in this market. I think you have to accept that buyers will use any tools available to them, which these days includes previous listings with photos, asking prices and sold prices.

Yes, of course we did when purchasing our property. It’s one of the most expensive purchases people make, therefore we used all of the tools out there.
For instance a property we were initially interested in, after a bit of research we discovered had been on the market 6 times over the past 5 years previously at lower and higher prices than it was on at at the time of us looking.
We didn’t go for that property in the end as we thought there must be an issue, as it seemed such an odd listing history.
The property still hasn’t sold, as far as I’m aware.
When looking I used zoopla, got the rightmove extension, plus did reverse image searches.
Most people will at least check zoopla & get the rightmove extension.

It's not that relevant, houses sell for under and over the advertised value.

To use the well known phrase 'it's worth what somebody is prepared to pay'. It's up to you what other accept. It's up to you what you are willing to accept and what you want to hold out for. That's the more valuable conversation to have with the agent and yourselves.

The agent is right imo. Nearly everyone looks at the sales pricing history I think. Surely increasing your price in a falling market is just wasting everyone's time ? Agents dont sell houses, houses sell themselves when appropriately priced. If you increase from a previous listing, without having added value to the property, you are just going to look like a deluded seller.

The estate agents only marketing ploy was to tell us to keep reducing the price even though we were getting viewers and offers, although some of the offers were very silly.

Viewings mean nothing, people go look at stuff sometimes just to laugh about how overpriced it is.

Its not 'very silly' offers, its the market and the agent and even now your new agent literally telling you your house is overpriced, putting the price up is the WORST thing for you to do. Its only worth what people are willing to offer.

Agents mostly overprice so they can reduce it later, thats a legitimate standard procedure there is really no other 'marketing ploy' (they cannot force viewers to buy) other than the quick sale method which is to price significantly under the value if you want to sell in a hurry.

Believing the original listing price is less than what you would get is very naive. That only really happens in pockets of 'hot market' which is pretty rare and usually only with the quick sale method where people are fighting over a cheaper priced house.

It's fine to increase the price in a rising market (I have done so in the past - in our case only to put off the looney woman who made us an offer we accepted and then ghosted us because we wouldn't buy hers!).

But if your local market is falling then increasing the price is going to look weird and potentially deluded. I'd just take it off the market and start again in Spring.

Yes, load the Area360 RM add-in to see house price changes on RM listings.

I think some of the "of course" and "Everyone does that" answers on here are just assuming 'everyone' does, because they do.

I've never heard of the options you talk about, and have supported 3 different young people buying houses in the last few years, plus we are now looking to move ourselves.
Because I have been browsing our area for a while now, I have occasionally recognised houses advertised as 'new listing' when I recently saw them with other agents, but I have no clue about some of these searches people have mentioned.

You didn"t actually sell it twice, you had two offers that fell through. Price history appears on many RM listings and if the house was bought during the period of super low interest rates any attempt to bump the price up now when rates are much higher will just get you ignored by buyers. PropertyLog is good for tracking price changes with RM.

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/rightmove-property-notes/ddnkogahnfkgkechllbdfgacnkikddbf

This?

Or worth what a lender is prepared to lend? People who are flush with cash don"t tend to overpay for property.

The new agent has not told us it is overpriced. He said it is the correct price.

We originally had a much higher price, on the advice of the old estate agent but came down by 75000 in stages to what is is now.

We are having to spend approximately 15000 to 20000 to get some work done which is needed for us to be able to sell it. We want to see a bit to the asking price to mitigate some of this cost.

This is why I was wondering how often people look at previous asking prices.

As a buyer I would just assume you are having trouble selling, like many people at the moment. I would offer what the house was worth to me, whatever you asked.

Yes, I previously used a paid browser extension. Now there are sites like Bestagent who show you previous asking prices and changes of EA for free. I would definitely expect your buyers to be aware.

I find your logic for raising the price quite hard to follow given that it's been on at a lower price with no acceptable offers but you're obviously free to try it.

We are having to spend approximately 15000 to 20000 to get some work done which is needed for us to be able to sell it.

Can you explain a bit more about this?

I see in this mornings news that the base rate is now expected to increase to 5% by sometime next year. This will mean mortgages at 7% and higher ! We also have had a big jump in inflation again - with more of that to follow. The knock on effect of reducing home values is baked in now for a year or two minimum. I would strongly recommend to anyone currently selling that they need to get ahead of the curve on price and get it done - because values will be considerably reducing ....
Thats good news for new entrants and for upsizers. But for those who want to downsize or cash out - its important to understand that time wasted will be costing yourself more.

What work do you need done? As a buyer I would prefer to do any work myself as I would be looking at a good long term solution and not a low-cost emergency solution to make it sellable (would be worried it was done to bare minimum standards)

if the house has not sold previously it is maybe not due to crash estate agent but that simply nobody wanted to pay the price let alone even more…

new estate agent says higher price is right because he wants your business, then he will lower it down the line

hope you can sell it soon but it seems to be a falling market and things are not shifting right now it seems

I’m looking to buy in North London and prices are falling almost monthly, so I’m sitting and waiting to see. I do consider previous asking prices and if a house keeps coming back on at different prices it makes me think there’s something wrong and I wouldn’t go and see it unless competitively priced. A lot of sellers are having trouble accepting they won’t get 2020-2023 asking prices anymore. I also don’t like work done recently, as I would have rather done it myself so it was to my finish and taste as sellers always think they can ask more if they’ve had to spend some cash.

Op, there's a good article here that might be helpful.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c84g13z6xx4eo

We have previously had 2 offers over our asking prices, which we accepted (obviously they weren't simultaneous) but both times the buyers had to pull out for reasons that were nothing to do with our house.

I Sold my last house in 2021 and the estate agents near us (we had a choice of two and I used both) were totally and utterly shocking. I mean really shocking. Absolutely dreadful.

When I was buying I said £400 K maximum and they kept taking me to houses on at £460K. We had a family from London look round (rural and isolated) and they wanted good commute facilities we were two hours by train! It was a total farce. They said it would sell for £380 K minimum it sold for £350K they lie to sell anything. It was the worse experience of my life. I am just like no no no

I hadn't heard of best agent before. I've just used it to look up a house that was listed in early October with Haart. I know that this house was previously listed with a different agent at a different price and then went off the market for a while.
I can't see any way of seeing that previous asking price with the previous agent. You seem to be saying it is possible so how would you do it? Thanks.

I think you should be really careful about putting too much weight on those or thinking of your house as having been sold twice. An offer from a buyer who was not in the end proceedable means very little.

Not trying to talk your house down btw- I obviously have no idea what its market value is. But if you are serious about selling it's a bad idea to anchor yourself to a previous price that it didn't actually sell at. Of course, if you think you'd only sell at a particular price then by all means list at that price and be prepared to wait- it's completely your choice- but the market is likely to be moving the other way at the moment.