Anyone else decided not to sell in this market?

[rootsandwings89]

We’ve made the tough decision to pull our property from the market.

We put our house up for sale in March, accepted an offer in May and found a house we loved, lost our buyer in July and have been trying to sell ever since. We’ve had viewings, reduced the price but only offers we’ve had are silly ones which means we can’t afford to upsize like we need to.

Mortgage rate increases meant the house we wanted is now unaffordable. It’s just too stressful so we’ve decided to stay put another 2 years and try again when things have hopefully settled down again.

has anyone else decided to pull their property?prop

Our agent said it's 13 weeks off Rightmove and then you can relist and go back to the top of the search results again. Or if you've accepted an offer and then it falls through I think they said 6-7 weeks off.

Sorry to break it to you. Economic slumps do not suddently go away after 4 years. There is so much debt in not just the UK but European balance sheets. That coupled with AI destroying the jobs market means that we are in for a tough ride for a long time.

We are very unlikely to see a 'vast improvement in 27/28'. People have been saying it will improve next year for the last 3 or 4 years and talking about relisting next Spring repeatedly during the same time period.

The chances are much higher than the market will fall. It has been slowly falling/stagnant/small nominal gains in some areas since late 22/23. I suspect the falls will speed up as the economy deteriorates further and unemployment rises plus all the factors that @disgracefullyyours and @Menopausalsourpuss have already mentioned.
I can't see real prices (ex inflation) rising because fundamentals are so poor.

My Parents are looking to buy early next year so weve had our eye on the market for the past 6 months and there's been a number of houses that have been removed from the market this week. The one was a favourite and had been on the market for about a year . Many houses in the area they want to move too are all sticking firm with the price but we are noticing houses are coming up as NEW yet they've been on our list for 6 months so I think they are just being moved to different estate agents and coming back up.

I have read that more houses sell in spring now because people take properties off the market to avoid moving over Christmas.

The offers you've had are not silly, they reflect what your house is actually worth. Most vendors believe agents valuations, but in reality the your house is only worth what someone will pay for it.

Remember that the housing market will only get worse over next 12 months with rising interest rates, and we number of properties on market are at a 12 year high.

It's sensible to value properties correctly, that's the only reason they haven't sold.

It's not rocket science, just price.

Money markets are pricing in 75 pbs increase in rates over 2027.

Didn't come from anywhere. Look at IMF forecast, everything work stagnate over 2027, & likely beyond. House price increases are driven partly by wealth effect, and perceived / real increases in living standards...just hoping things will change because "they have to after 4 years" us hopium...what's the catalyst(s) that will cause it to change to a sellers market...increase in real wages, lower unemployment, increase in perceived wealth (such as stock market gains), etc.

None of these things are predicted to change, if anything Ai may cause marginally higher unemployment.

Yes we did the same, will try again in a years time

As a potential upsizer, im not looking for prices to go up, I’m just hoping the whole market corrects and there’s more realistic pricing at all levels.

I don’t see how there can be a ‘vast improvement’ in 27-28. Wishful thinking, I’m afraid.

It is really noticeable around here that there has been a correction to prices but it’s the sellers higher up the chain in the houses over £650k and above who aren’t prepared to entertain the notion. A friend is buying at the moment and was more or less told
to fuck off by their vendors when they made a realistic / cheeky offer (depending on your perspective). A week later they came back to ask if it was still on the table because they wanted to put in a ‘cheeky’ lowball offer on their onward purchase.

If everyone in the chain is willing to accept the reality of the situation and let go of what they think their house is ‘worth’ then it’s still possible to keep the market moving but it does seem to be the people towards the top of the chains who are most resistant to this.

I sold earlier in the year, and am now in rented. I can’t find anything suitable as the market is so slow, I think I will have to wait for January to see what comes on then. I’ve noticed a few properties come off the market this week, I assume they are ‘resting’ for 3 months before going on again next year. People aren’t really dropping prices that much though, unless there is something dodgy about the house.

moving upwards is often easier if prices aren’t increasing but as pp said many at the top of the chain have a set idea what their property is worth.

This isn’t a straightforward price-sensitive market that just means prices aren’t rising as fast and being ‘sensible’ about prices will fix things. It’s a falling stagnant market of a type we haven’t seen in the uk for a long time. So YANBU.

There’s a house I’m keeping an eye on being sold by distant relatives and they’ve put it on the market at 20% higher than the last house that sold in their small development, which was 3 years ago. I’m absolutely agog. I don’t think it will sell at all in the current market, but putting it on at 20% over 2023 is absolutely bonkers. It’s a probate sale so I suppose they don’t have to sell, but it will be costing them quite a lot to keep it maintained and paying council tax etc. I’m really not sure WHO is going to buy it. And that’s the question. Not ‘what is my house worth’ but ‘who is going to buy this and how?’

I suspect probate sales are a big part of the problem as these are so often the large family homes at the top of the chain. Add in multiple inheriting sellers who are all in line for a slice of the pie with none of the usual 'push' factors which affect buyers further down the chain and it seems that this will be the very last section of the market willing to accept the correction to prices.

But in this case it’s not a ‘family house’ as such, though I suppose a family could live in it. It’s a 2 bed plus study that the dead relatives downsized into 20 years ago. But now it’s being sold at ‘family house’ type price. So it’s still not really an ideal family house, and although it’s immaculate it doesn’t look like a family house either as the decor is very elaborate, but it’s much too expensive for anyone to buy it as a downsize option.

Sorry to derail the thread, as you can tell I think far too much about this house!

I work in a job/company very closely linked to house moving and our growth for next year as a business is forecast at 5% which is more based on internal process efficiencies and not the actual market growing. 2026 has seen a 19% contraction in the housing market so a long way to go until things are "normal"

i am amazed at unrealistic sellers prices still priced at levels from peak
of the threads on here about why won’t my house sell , it is normally down to price rather than presentation

inflation is eating away at wages and house prices etc

as a previous poster said something fundamental has to change in the economy to bring about confidence

property log and ai soon enables you to look up any price reductions

I don’t see how there can be a ‘vast improvement’ in 27-28. Wishful thinking, I’m afraid.

the poster who said there would be a vast improvement in the coming 2 years has probably gone on Google and found an article written by an organisation with skin in the game to 'talk up the market' optimistically eg a real estate company or property developer. They didn't look for the counter-argument, so they present a polarised view. I've seen numerous perspectives about what will happen in the coming years. They all have merit.

what I know at a local level is that properties in our village are still selling or at least coming under offer and going through the shitshow that is conveyancing.

we are planning to withdraw from the market in the next week, get Christmas over and done with then relaunch as a new property in Feb after the RightMove 14 week deadline. We have a viewing tomorrow but I'm more inclined to believe they are not serious buyers and wanting to "take a look". In fact I have become entirely cynical about the profile of most people we've had through our door. I remain to be proven wrong!

@rootsandwings89 it's a horrible stressful time, so you're doing the right thing for you which is protecting yourself from stress and taking stock. That's what we've decided to do. We've set ourselves a 2 year timeframe to move, which is absolutely mental compared with previous moves, but setting expectations realistically in a market like this means decisions are made without pressure to act if you don't need to.

I think that its a great idea to take the property off market for a while and take stock.

For anyone upsizing, a falling market is great news - even if your immediate mortgage costs may be a little higher. The bigger homes are coming towards you. Save as hard as possible to increase your deposit.

When you do go back to market remember that 82% of all sold properties never had a price reduction. You really want to get your marketing price right at the start.

We are selling our 2 bed terrace and looking for a traditional 1930s semi. Struggling to sell our home, despite it being fully renovated, next to a zone 4 train station and lots of local amenities. I don’t feel it’s priced too highly but a house is only worth what someone will pay. We wouldn’t mind taking the hit but it doesn’t seem price reductions fall evenly sadly for us.

The market is changing, volumes had declined rapidly and those that do sell the prices are coming down.

Now most people are off the very low interest rates (5 years since 2022 when they started to rise) affordability has collapsed.

The good news as others have said is that if you are moving up the chain, the house you move to should also be cheaper.

The bad news is it will take some time still for the sellers of higher value properties nearer the top of the chain to realise that their expectations are near impossible to fulfill.

The thing you really don't want to do which of course is obvious is sell low and then buy high in a declining market.

I'm not sure it makes much difference tbh. If your house value has dropped a little, it's fair to assume what you are buying will drop accordingly.

It depends on the reason you are moving I guess. I plan move when it suits me regardless.

I’m not getting something. We have never bothered about this provided we are buying/selling in the same market. So, if prices dip, then we sell accordingly and buy accordingly so it evens out. It’s only been an issue when entering the market, leaving g (not relevant to us), or buying and selling in different markets such as far flung geographical areas where the area where you are buying g may not have as a much of a dip as the area you are selling, but tbh we have found this pretty rare.