Another house price thread. What would you do?

[naturelover]

We put our house on the market two weeks ago specifically because our "dream" forever house came on the market and with prices falling we saw the gap narrowing between our house and that house and thought it was a good opportunity to upgrade.

Our house has had no interest at all. I'm not sure if it's overpriced or if people are simply not buying at any price. We're in SW London by the way.

Our agent suggests we drop the price a bit. We are inclined to try this. We worry that if we sit tight our house will drop to 2004 levels which is when we bought it, and then we'll never be able to upgrade. We don't HAVE to move for about two years (for schools) but we would prefer to be in our "forever" house (which needs work) sooner rather than later, before we TTC again. We currently only have two bedrooms and the schools are poor.

Of course, if we get a low offer for our house and if our dream house would accept a correspondingly low offer, we'd be fine. I suppose I'm trying to decide if we should sit tight and risk going into negative equity and be stuck here for years, or sell now at a low price assuming it would be lower still next year.

Sorry for the ramble. Would love your views. Thanks

We are in this same position.

We have decided to

1. Stay put

or

1. Rent ours out and rent a bigger place.

We are worried about when we come to re-mortgage in a new house, higher mortgage, bigger house to heat, plus higher heating charges, paying £8000 plus to estate agents for a house we might not be able to afford to look after. If we found our dream house it would be worth it but we have not, and probably wont!

We had ours on the market (still is) for 5 months now and have had 6 lots of people come and view and it is priced competitively.

You have to do what is right for you. If this is the dream house and you can afford to move and do the work needed, why are you thinking you might sit tight?

Prices are at 2004 levels in some areas.Drop it the max you can and then renegotiate the discount on your purchase.Nationwide said we are at march 2006 ish atm but will get to 2004 and thats the best case scenario.Are there others that have sold around you recently?We have just bought so there are buyers but all are looking for serious reductions i think.

I am SW London (Clapham)and prices aren't at 2004 yet - mainly because they shot up so fast during 2007. Two houses sold on my street for £875k last year - now two on at £695k and no interest... People not even looking from what I can tell. Everyone in London wants to be wheeler-dealer and not buy until bottom. Sorry.

Naturelover, another 'forever' house will come up.

But if you really want to go for it, have you looked into whether you can pay the purchaser's stamp duty on your house? That would leave potential buyers with more money to satisfy lenders' demands for larger deposits these days. 500 mortgage products were withdrawn in just 24 hours last week.

I'm sorry I can't remember how those deals are structured but a good solicitor could maybe advise?

I'd drop to 10% over the minimum offer you can afford to take and still afford to upgrade

if you drop to the minimum people will still try to bargain you down