Busy weekend for estate agents

kunekune

Same thing here: a number of houses under offer within the last week. And that's just the ones where they could agree prices - if the experience of buyers on here is anything to go by, there've also been a lot of unsuccessful offers.

I'm not sure "erroneous" is the word for the Halifax figure, more "misleading unless you take it in context". And I don't think that's the reason for this blip - I go with the pent up demand theory.

bratcatcher

Perhaps with the new year sellers have decided to cut their losses and sell at a reduced price so that their lives arent held up for another year???
Thats what happened to us, just fed up of being on the market so decided to just get on with it.
Loads of SSTC signs popping up near me on houses that have been on the market for ages.

mbga9pgf

Time to bring you all down to earth...

http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKTRE51904S20090210

LONDON (Reuters) - House prices fell at a faster pace in January than in December and the outlook for prices turned gloomier as the number of completed home sales fell, a survey showed on Tuesday.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' seasonally adjusted price balance fell to -76 in January from -74 in December, suggesting the housing market remains in a very depressed state.
And surveyors expect house prices to keep falling. The balance of those reporting they expected prices to fall against those forecasting a rise slipped to -88, its lowest since RICS started polling for this information in 1998.
Completed sales per surveyor also fell to a survey low of 9.9 from 10.0 and the average number of homes for sale on surveyors' books fell to 75.4 from 77.9 as owners opted to rent out their homes rather than sell.
RICS said that took stock levels in January down 10.4 percent from a year ago, the first annual decline since October 2007.

Keep dreaming. This crash has legs to go on for at least another 18 months.

CLS26

Forgive my ignorance, but if a property in England/Wales says 'SSTC', I thought it could still fall through and come back on the market at a later date?

Thanks,
CLS

hethmar

mbga9pgf wrote: »

Time to bring you all down to earth...

http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKTRE51904S20090210



Keep dreaming. This crash has legs to go on for at least another 18 months.

I dont think any of us are dreaming mbga - just stating the situation in our own localities and wondering why so many are suddenly SSTC. (Your info is for January - we are all noticing activity over the weekend in February)

CLS - yes, "sold subject to contract" means just that - the agreement could fall through before exchange of contracts.

domcastro

yes - but knowing estate agents they were sold 6 months ago. Bringing out past properties to make people think the market is picking up

hethmar

No dom, we are literally seeing these SSTC notices slapped on local houses this week - and friends have had offers this week after waiting for a year.

I dont think any of us are trying to talk up the market - just stating the facts.

confused31_2

The serach i done at the begining there was some massive reductions in prices i seen one 90000 down to 55000 which is a big percentage drop.

Maybe a lot wont go through, but really we dont know what offers they have made they all could be bargain prices.

Sellers might becoming realistic, but just think how many offers never got accepted on monday??

hethmar

Yes, maybe its a combination of sellers realising they have to lower prices and buyers thinking now is the time to get a low fixed mortgage rate. Dont know - very strange.

hog_hill

There was a report in the Northern Ireland news this morning from a leading estate agent over here saying that we had reached the bottom of the market. I think that might be a bit ambitious yet. The houses that have dropped seem to be selling. I completed onva semi a couple of weeks ago at 130,000. It started at 190000, then 160,000 (I offered 155,000 at this stage and was laughed at!!) and finally on the market for 143,500. The estate agent told me last week that the house beside me has been agreed at the asking price of 143,500 - Dont believe her though.