The property market has gone mad! Mad I tell you!

[IlanaK]

We are stiiiiillllll looking for somewhere to buy. There has been nothing new on the market for two months now. A flat came on the market this week - viewings today. We went, as did 19 other couples! We put an offer in and were told they would wait until Monday to get "all offers in". So basically, as soon as anything good comes on the market, we will be competing against loads of other people, everything will go for over the asking price and we will never be able to buy anywhere.

Soooooo fed up of all this!

actually, yes, am probably talking out of my arse as have scottish property head on. not round here it wasn't busy before christmas, not by a long chalk. it was a busy summer (busiest on record for some firms) but there isn't plenty of money around, it's hard to get a mortgage up here. but then prices haven't fallen, they've just stopped going up.

Ok, so do you think it is worth doing some more leafleting? We did about 200 this weekend, but could do more next weekend. Or is it a waste of time?

I'd say its definitely worth doing some more leafleting - but would wait till Feb (which is when people start focusing on possibly moving during the easter school breaks).

We have the same here (in Surrey). I think less than 10 houses came on the market last year (we sold in the dip too and are renting). Houses here either sell within 10 days or stay on the market for ever.
We were buying 1 house but that proved to be a money-pit so we backed out of it and we put an offer on one 5-6 weeks ago but the offer wasn't enough. Everything around here is marketted by 1 agent who values everything at the same price which is £50k above our budget. I have no idea what he says to vendors to convince them not to lower their prices after a few months. Some houses around here have been at that same price for 2 years!!

Well, it went to "best and final offers" today. We bid £16000 over the asking price. We won't know until tomorrow afternoon - argh!

And we got a message on my dh mobile from a demented lady who said that the leaflet we put through her door was fooling no-one and that we were obviously an agency using someone's private mobile number and that people like us were despicable. So, we won't be getting place through leafleting either from the looks of it!

Good luck IlanaK - and ignore the crazy lady! We get lots of estate agent leaflets through the door in this area so I can see why she might be abit cranky about it - but you may well get a positive result from someone else.

we are in west hill in N6 and the market never seemed to suffer during the downturn - it is worth looking around here

Well, we didn't get the flat . There were 5 offers. Ours was the second highest. They went with the highest despite the fact that those people hadn't even put their place on the market yet . They have been given three weeks to get an offer on their place. It's so stupid. For the sake of some extra money, they are rejecting us - totally chain free. Our offer was £16000 over the asking price, but it went for more than £25,000 over the asking price.

We are doomed.

Sorry IlanaK - I bet the sellers havent found somewhere to buy yet which is why they went for the highest bid. To be honest, everything could change when they do find somewhere to buy - and they could put it back on the market if the other party arent moving fast enough/the chain gets too painful. We certainly found that happening with a few properties when we were buying a couple of years back when the market was every bit as crazy as it is now. You WILL find somewhere - hold on in there. And maybe think about widening your search to Kensal Rise/Kensal Town/Brondesbury in the meantime.

sorry too - there are plenty of gorgeous conversions in Highgate - come and have a look!

I wish I could say the same was happening in SW London

Ilanak - don't give up hope, it may still be yours! Good luck with your move.

They HAVE put an offer in on something else. That's why I can't understand them going with the other people. Money blinds people sometimes.

Thanks for the suggestions of other places, but we are pretty set on location.

Could you let the surveyor who down-valued our Hove maisonette by 17k this week know that please.

God treacletart that's rotten, where in Hove are you?

bit wary of giving too much info ems - had to have a thread pulled earlier in the week when it came up almost instantly on google searching the topic but hey ho! - we're between the Stn and Poets Crnr. Our agent challenged it and immediately sent the lender and surveyor details of half a dozen similar properties that completed recently for the same/more money. Should hear tomorrow if surveyor is prepared to change his figure, but I can't help feeling this is going to scupper things for us. Very fed up. We had loads of interest in our place and sold it in a week. Since then it's taken us sooooo long to find somewhere to buy for our budget and we can't afford to drop our agreed price...

God that's rotten, I hope the surveyor does the right thing. Also puts the fear in me as we're in that area and thinking of selling too!

Ohforfoxsake why do you say that about sw london ??

we are trying to sell and then buy there. Is the market flat?

When we bought our house in mid 2007 the property market in London was like this - maybe worse. Never less than ten other couples looking at the same time as us, mostly one-off viewings going to sealed bids. It was horrific. Its a shame it's back to that again. I thought maybe the whole economic dip would have put paid to it.

Oh, just saw you are looking in NW6. The property market's been bunfight central in that are for years and years. Nice area, though. Grew up there. Miss it!

I am getting seriously depressed about it. Nothing else come on the market. DH and the kids out leafleting again today. We will have done 350 in total over the last two weeks. One agent told us about a place that was not on the market yet and we arranged to see it this weekend. 30 minutes before the appointment just as we were leaving, we got a call saying not to come as they had rented it. I am actually finding myself in tears over it each day. Insane really.

Could you rent?I feel the same may haoppen to us Our house went on teh market thursday and we had 5 viewings saturday.If we get an offer we will have to rent as there is nothing decent to buy!

No, we can't rent. We are living with family so that we don't eat into the capital. Renting in that area would cost silly money unfortunately.

nothing here either (suffolk/essex border)
the house we wanted sold just before Christmas and nothing else remotely suitable in our price range has come up.

We were hoping to move my dad in with us but have decided to wait till the end of the month and then take ours off the market and look at care homes for dad instead. only a week to go now

Have had lots of time wasters people look round but we have just lost interest now as there is nowhere to go.

I hope you have more luck soon. February is supposed to be a good time for new houses to come up.

Have faith IlanaK. It's not the right time of year quite yet. Apparently Easter weekend is the busiest weekend of the whole year for estate agents. I bet in the next month or so a whole bunch of stuff comes on the market. It took us six months to sell our place (put it on the market about 4 weeks before all the banks crashed!) and a while to find somewhere too but we are now in a fanastic house which just popped up on the market out of nowhere. It had loads of viewings so we thought we weren't in with a chance but there was alot of work to do which scared most people off (hooray!)
Good luck and honestly from bitter experience, don't give up, the market will come alive again soon (we were at the point of considering extending our already over-extended house at this time last year in despair at the total stagnation of the market).