Are vendors actually lowering their prices in your area?

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Here its impossible to work out what a house is worth. Most vendors don't seem to be dropping their price (from top of the market prices) or if they do drop the price its by about five per cent. Is this the same everywhere?

Prices are not dropping in my area.

5 bed house on my road still at same price now as it was 15 months ago.

They dont need to move though ... or so they say

Some vendors are lowering their prices and others are in cloud cuckoo land. In our street there is a lovely house that was originally on the market for £475k the sale fell through and they have now put the house back on the market for £275k!

A friend of mine had her house on the market a year ago for £310k, I'm not sure what it actually went for but she said they had to accept an offer that was quite a bit off the asking price. Their neighbour has just put their identical house on the market for £415k, what planet are they living on?

"I think people who bought in the last few years and need to sell are already as low as they go with out loosing money"

So they make a loss, so what I won't be crying into my cornflakes for people who bought at the peak of the market, the bubble was there for all to see.
Just because somebody else needs to sell something for a certain price doesn't mean other people have to pay it.

nope. Stuff round by us going down by about five grand or so. Saw one the other ay, been on the market a year, price been put up by a few grand!

It's been stalemate around here for the last year or so. Although the majority of asking prices still look deluded there has been an increase since new year in houses showing 'Sold Subject to Contract'. Too early to tell whether these manage to complete and how close to the asking price they have managed to sell at. I suspect there is a big discrepency between asking and sold price, but can't be bothered to enter the EA until they start advertising sensible prices. Also noticed a trend for a price range to be quoted - e.g. £300k - £340k.

Also agree with Sorrento about the unemployment factor. As well as the forced sales, as people feel increasingly insecure about their jobs and income, for many, large mortgages will seem too much of a liability, even to those that are lucky enough to be granted them.

I never understand the rationale for those price ranges. £300k-£340k? Who's going to offer £340k for it then?!

At the moment prices for roads are being set by those houses that HAVE to be sold, so all the pressure is downwards. Once your neighbour has sold theirs for £50k less than you were hoping for, because they want out, you have zero chance of getting what you were hoping for.

lol, Jimmy - sill, isn't it?

ASKING prices aren't what you need to look at, it's what places are actually selling for

people who have to sell are starting to wake up and drop their asking prices

We bought for 90k less than asking price in December. We weren't in chain though and it is still 30k more than owners paid for it 5 years ago. We think we've a good deal though.

We bought for 90k less than asking price in December. We weren't in chain though and it is still 30k more than owners paid for it 5 years ago. We think we've a good deal though.

I'm surprised at how many people aren't. We did - dropped the asking price from £450 to £375, and finally accepted an offer of £320 , but other people don't seem to be budging half as much - we needed to sell though so I guess it depends how desperate you are

After a chat with the estate agent on a property we were going to buy last year for over £700k (til we discovered the £200k that needs spending on it )we've been told the vendor will now sell for £550.

Need to get it below 500 because of the amount that needs spending (and the stamp duty saving) so need to keep working on them but you'd think that if she is willing to sell for £550 she would realise that she's putting people off advertising it at £675!

I just don't understand the way people are thinking. Its like they thik they are a special case and the fall in the market affects everyone but them.

I suppose she might think that if she put it on at 550 someone will then offer 20-30% below that. No-one would want to feel they have paid asking price nowadays.

tinker has a good point, even after somewhere's been reduced, buyers STILL expect quite a large chunk off and nobody would pay the asking price

I have heard so many times that it'll be a cold day in hell before Heswall prices drop, they do think they are special and some millionaire will appear from nowhere and want to spend £450k on their house.
I have even said to vendors whilst looking around, could you afford to buy this house now and they say no.
I had to run out of one house when I had my DC in the buggy, she said i'm not lowering the price I have to think of my children's future, to which I snapped but your happy enough to sail my DC's future up the swanny, she did the cats bum face and I left.

Lol! She'll be stuck with that face if the wind changes. (so my Mum told me). Think she'll be stuck with the house too.

Next door sold for £185k last year, having originally gone on at £225k. Next door to them then went on at £186k, dropped to £172k and has now taken it off the market.

If we wanted to sell now we wouldn't get enough to buy anywhere else, because all the other houses the next step up still seem to be on at last years price. So while there was £10k or so difference between what we'd expect for ours and what we'd have to buy for, now we are looking at a chasm of about £50k

Not really. Just saw some ads in local magazine which I thought were a little cloud cuckoo land. Could just be the estate agents trying to prop up the market. I suspect that actual sale prices of properties that move (and there is movement in the market) are far below asking.

You have to call the estate agents to find out what goes on beneath the surface.

THIS is my favourite article about how people see the value of their home. The best bit:

"Homeowners continue to expect their property to buck the current trend in the housing market, with 38 per cent expecting their home to either hold its value or for it to increase.

This is despite the fact that only 19 per cent thinking house prices across the country will not fall during the coming 12 months.

Just 5 per cent of people said they thought the value of their property would decrease significantly during the period, although 16 per cent think their neighbour's home will be worth a lot less in a year's time than it is now.

At the same time 30 per cent of people think the price of their home will rise during the coming year, but only 14 per cent think neighbouring properties will see a similar increase. "

Oh catswaezle that is the whole point, you will gain massively, you don't sell yours for less and then pay the asking price of the next one up.
Look at the %, if you are going up the ladder 10% off your house will be a lot less than 10% of a £300k for example.
House price's dropping is a GOOD thing for everybody except Gordon Brown and the banks, think how much we'll all save in stamp duty alone, not to mention that some people got conned into putting the fees and stamp duty onto the mortgage and will therefore pay it back threefold.

On upgrading, I read somewhere that 4-5 bedroom houses are holding their value better than the smaller ones.

I'd disagree our 4 bed is down 15% on 2007.

Houses in my area seem to be going on at same price as they would have been 2 years ago but selling for much less... think estate agents can't admit there has been any change . Ours was very reluctant to let us reduce the price of our house because he said people would look at price and take off £20k anyway!

We put ours up in November at a very realistic price and have had 3 offers on it, the one we accepted was only 2.5% lower than the asking price and they are practically cash buyers with no chain SO if you realistically price your house, they will sell. No-one else seems to have dropped around here though. I do see houses coming on to the market at more realistic prices but also notice that some houses have been up for over a year at the same price, what is the point in that?

We put ours up in November at a very realistic price and have had 3 offers on it, the one we accepted was only 2.5% lower than the asking price and they are practically cash buyers with no chain SO if you realistically price your house, they will sell. No-one else seems to have dropped around here though. I do see houses coming on to the market at more realistic prices but also notice that some houses have been up for over a year at the same price, what is the point in that?

Oops!