Diary of a London Estate Agent

Generali

pickles110564 wrote: »

That is exactly what I am saying, buyers need to pay what vendors are requesting then you 2 will tango.

No it's not, pickles110564 old fruit.

What you are saying is that buyers will have to pay the price that sellers demand.

What I am saying is that if there is a disagreement over the price there is no sale.

Either sellers or buyers or both will have to revise their opinions of what a house should sell for.

At the moment it appears that sellers are caving in more often than buyers as houses are falling in price at the point at which they are actually sold.

Generali

pickles110564 wrote: »

Sorry Gen forgot it was you.

Never mind old thing. You can see I felt so strongly I hit submit twice!

pickles110564 wrote: »

I have been trying to explain that unless a seller is desperate they will hold out because several in the past will have seen that after a crash a recovery will follow. They are probably hoping that it is not to far around the corner, I for one think that it will take 5 years before they start to hit the dizzy heights again.

What you say is of course true. The thing is as prices fall and the people that will only sell for 'top dollar' effectively withdraw from the market, the desperate, needy and forced sellers are the only ones left so they end up setting the prices.

The unquantifiable factor this time is BTL. Will they hold on or will they sell? Usually BTLers are middle aged as they are the ones with enough accumulated capital to be able to take part. This means that in many cases they are approaching retirement and so less likely to want to take a capital hit. Having said that, they may feel that it's worth hanging on to the income source as being more predictable or reliable than an annuity.

My feeling is that if things get reallybloody (say nominal falls of 40% coupled with mass unemployment) that they'll jump ship in many cases and take the loss before things get even worse. We have no way of knowing but now but it should become clear in a couple of years which way the wind's blowing.

do_it_today!

Well it will be interesting to see what happens after christmas

ad9898_3

do_it_today! wrote: »

Well it will be interesting to see what happens after christmas

It will be interesting to see what happens from November onwards, the corpse of the housing market is starting to stink now and its normally when sales pick up, EA's have a bleak winter ahead

Generali

People are now starting to lose their jobs in the financial sector (by recent tradition (IYSWIM) quick to hire and quick to fire). By the New Year, that will have become a flood as that's when bonuses are starting to be paid so it's cheaper to sack someone in December or January than at Easter.

Once unemployment picks up, we'll start seeing blood on the carpets.

mewbie_2

Generali wrote: »

Once unemployment picks up, we'll start seeing blood on the carpets.

What with that, and the amount of brown stuff hitting the fan, it should at least give a much needed boost to the laminate flooring industry.