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Original poster

Why arent there any new homes on the market?

29 replies

unavailable · 06/04/2010 23:13

We have now agreed a sale(touch wood) but there is nothing to buy! Isnt Spring the season for house sales?

Am I missing something?

OP posts:
Original poster
unavailable · 06/04/2010 23:53

....I dont mean "new", I mean newly up for sale.

OP posts:
IMoveTheStars · 07/04/2010 00:01

I'm wondering this too - recently looked on rightmove for houses in our area, and there are about 5 houses in the whole town in the 180-250k bracket!

Jackstini · 07/04/2010 08:12

Having the same problem - just seems to be nothing coming on here either.

CiderIUpAndSetIFree · 07/04/2010 13:42

Am wondering this too. Do you think people are waiting for the general election to be over?

KoalaSar · 07/04/2010 20:00

I think it's very complicated!

We are in a 300k property and want to move up the ladder but a family house in this area costs about £500k so it's a significant amount of money and I'm wary of making a wrong choice.

I am reluctant to put our house on the market because there's nothing I want to buy. I think much of what's for sale is over priced and is tending to achieve the asking price because too many buyers are chasing too few properties.

I think it will improve in the next couple of years but not this year.

MillyMollyMoo · 07/04/2010 21:33

We had hoped we might get £250k for ours, pie in the sky valuation from the EA was £299, but the moment the stamp duty changed I've decided if we sell at all it'll be nearer the £275k mark because everyone in the £300-400 mark seems to be offering to pay the stamp duty but refusing to lower the price, so that's what we will have to do too. It's a bloody minefield.
I'm glad we're not in a rush, this could take years.

KoalaSar · 07/04/2010 21:44

Isn't the stamp duty thing fixed for two years?

We're not exactly in a rush but our DD is in reception and we will potentially move out of the area - in which case I'd prefer her to change schools sooner rather than later.

It's highly depressing.

MillyMollyMoo · 07/04/2010 22:05

I don't know KoalaSar, end of year 2 and key stage 1 wouldn't be a bad time to move at all, but it never seems to pan out that way for us at least.

Is it 2 years ? Oh well I guess either armageddon or something else to worry about will have been and gone by the time we finally get an extra bedroom.

KoalaSar · 08/04/2010 17:37

I suppose you're right.

We have a little one who'll start school when DD goes into Y4 so we'd like to have moved before then.

It's a catch 22 thing though, isn't it? You don't have your house on the market and then a house comes up you'd love to buy and you can't do anything about putting in an offer because you're not in a position to do so.

And yet if I put the house on the market - guaranteed nothing will come up!

Our neighbours sold up and moved out at xmas. They got almost the asking price and moved into rented because they thought it would put them in a better position to buy - unfortunately they now have to renew their 6 month lease because their offers have all been rejected - people are holding out for the asking price.

You might have to pitch a tent....

NoahAndTheWhale · 09/04/2010 10:49

We're selling a house in the £200-£250k bracket. But no one is wanting to buy it. Yet (hopefully)

MintHumbug · 09/04/2010 14:22

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MillyMollyMoo · 09/04/2010 14:49

I guess a house is worth what somebody will pay though or more to the point what somebody is prepared to sell it for.
I practically threw an Estate Agent out the door last year because the price he came up with put us £60k into negative equity when we'd put down a 20% deposit, he may well have been right but there was no way the house was for sale at that price.

OrmRenewed · 09/04/2010 14:52

We have a scruffy idiosyncratic cramped cosy 3-bed terrace for sale

If you're interested at all....

i am getting seriously pissed off with the amount of new build round here. Every time I do an online search 70% of pages I pull up are brand new. And I don't want brand new!

OrmRenewed · 09/04/2010 14:52

We have a scruffy idiosyncratic cramped cosy 3-bed terrace for sale

If you're interested at all....

i am getting seriously pissed off with the amount of new build round here. Every time I do an online search 70% of pages I pull up are brand new. And I don't want brand new!

KoalaSar · 09/04/2010 19:28

the thing is, Milly - and I don't mean this to be rude - many of the houses that are for sale are way overpriced because people bought them for too much in the first place.

Nobody wants to sell up and end up in neative equity. The EA gives a value and the seller refuses to sell at that price, so nothing goes on the market (according to my EA friend).

We've been in our house for 12 years and I don't want to buy an over-priced house because I don't want to pay for the fact that somebody else bought a house at some sort of silly price within the last five years - that was their mistake and I don't want to shell out for it.

I don't mind taking a hit on the value of my house - it's valued at £300k but I think £240k would be fairer. Of course, houses up the chain would have to come down in price also before I would accept an offer of £240k and until that happens, I think we're all stuck. These are interesting times.

MillyMollyMoo · 09/04/2010 19:57

I completely agree Koala but we've personally been here before in 2005 and blinked first expecting that further up the chain since they'd benefitted from the most paper gains they'd take a paper loss of a similar %.
Did they heck
And since they have the bigger houses which very few are being built they hold all the cards.

OrmRenewed · 09/04/2010 20:11

If we manage to sell (ho ho!) I have my eye on a place that has been on the market for over a year - hoping they will accept a cheeky offer. We are planning to put ours on at least 10K less than it has been valued at in the hope of getting things moving.

Schulte · 09/04/2010 20:25

Yep, same here, things have been quiet since December (when we started looking in earnest) and have slowed down even more in the last few weeks. Apparently the election is to blame. We have an offer on ours and are considering buying a house that's not 100% what we had hoped for, out of sheer desperation

mintyfresh · 09/04/2010 20:41

According to a recent Rightmove survey - only 5% of people think it is a good time to sell at the moment. 50% of people think they will sell up in a years time! Might give some indication as to what is going on.

In our village there are a lot of houses on but for silly prices. There are some houses that have been on for well over a year. The odd one that comes on for a reasonable price sells within days....

KoalaSar · 09/04/2010 23:36

I do agree about the election being to blame - it's natural I guess - people know there are going to be cuts and not sure whehter it will affect them.

I do wish more houses would be built. We live in a semi-rural village where no more building is allowed until 2012. They've built the infrastructure, just not the houses.

I know many families who would put their £300k houses on the market if there was anything to buy.

In some areas, I think it would be wise for the government to lift the development ban. Seeing as they've built the roads to service future building, I don't know why they don't just bite the bullet and build them now.

mumzy · 10/04/2010 13:30

I think a lot of people have'nt accepted the market have moved on since the peak in 2007. An identical house to yours in our road sold for £425K in July 2007 at the peak and ours has now been valued at £385K which the EA say is realistic and would achieve a quick sale. During the peak paying the asking price was almost the norm as people felt house prices would keep rising so they were'nt losing out. Now you know the market has hit the peak and mortgages are harder to get so no one wants to pay the asking price. We're trying to buy a 4 bed detach and the asking prices are similar to those in 2007. Also there is very little to buy as the types of people living in them (pensioners, retired types) are'nt moving as they get hit by Hipps and stamp duty which they did'nt have to pay when they bought them 20 years ago. Its very very frustrating!!!

TDiddy · 10/04/2010 16:18

1)yes, people aren't willing to take loses.
2)Post HIPS- less people sticking houses on the market to see what happens i.e. more friction in the market due to transaction costs
3)public sector unemployment fears now creeping in
4)stamp duty rise for larger houses
5)private sector unemployment still relatively high

TDiddy · 10/04/2010 16:20

6)as you point out, less mortgage supply/competition
7)housebuilding supply has dried up due to loses in that sector

OrmRenewed · 10/04/2010 18:24

I have just found out via a friend who knows the area well that the chap who is selling the house we want has been there for over 20yrs. So he would have paid a fraction of it's current value. But he has still kept the asking price the same even though he has moved agents several times over 18m. A serious reality failure there I think.

Our house has been valued at 10k more than it was 6 yrs ago - inspite of the collapse in house prices. Which is just stupid! And the agent said it was hard to value as 'nothing is selling at the moment'. Wonder why that might be then

MillyMollyMoo · 10/04/2010 18:35

What he paid for it doesn't matter compared to what he can now buy for his money.
It's all very well saying people need reality checks but the fact is unless people are forced to, nobody is going to take a loss, paper or real, so it's stalemate and unless interest rates rise, buyers will blink before sellers.