Are houses selling more quickly?

Contessa

I'm intending to retire and move from the North West to the West Country. Started looking at Devon properties seriously 2 weeks ago. Found 2 that I really liked-one with some drawbacks, but the other, at 80K more, ticked most of the boxes. Unfortunately, this one had no chain so was looking for a quick sale, whilst mine isn't on the market yet. The former is now STC, and the latter is UO (in 3 weeks). Suggests the market is improving.

Running_Horse

Although not 100% accurate, to check how popular an area is I do my search on Rightmove then click on sold STC, and compare the numbers. It has been interesting to see the numbers at the peak of the boom, then the trough, and now picking up a bit.

pennyjar56

In our area ( Midlands) we're noticing that houses are SSTC fairly quickly (witihin weeks) when they're priced right. However, we've also seen one or two then coming back on the market. I wonder whether people are buying houses thinking they'll be able to get a mortgage and then finding they can't?

We've been keeping our eye on a house that's priced right but needs a lot of work. It's been on the market for 7 or 8 months now and has been sold a couple of times and then back on the market.

cashndash

I would say they are at the moment, looking at our local area.

A house went on last week and was under offer in less than a week. It seems there are more buyers than sellers round here, so competition is quite fierce if you have a house that several people are keen to get hold of!

jenny74

cashndash wrote: »

A house went on last week and was under offer in less than a week. It seems there are more buyers than sellers round here, so competition is quite fierce if you have a house that several people are keen to get hold of!

And that's the key issue here.. Supply and demand. If there are more buyers than properties on the market, then reasonably priced houses will sell in a reasonable amount of time.

However if the buyers are not there, or not yet proceedable, even the most reasonablly piced house can take a while to sell.

Jenny

Contessa

The Rightmove tip is useful, thanks. I suspect that there are local property developers ready to move quickly on a desirable property. I need to declutter and tart up my house before putting it on the market. Or do I? Another idea I had was to hire storage space to clear the house then market it.

spuds_2

We hired a storage unit to keep stuff in - we had a lot of hobby gear, books, dvd's, and musical instruments. It certainly made the house less cluttered and easier to clean quickly. In the end we moved anyway and our house is still for sale, so I can't say it made the difference between selling and not selling.

We have a friend who is a mortagage advisor - he says that it's a big problem with people getting mortgages/remortgaging finding that the lender doesn't value the property at what they have offered. I suspect this accounts for a lot of houses falling through at the lower end of the market.

cashndash

Contessa wrote: »

The Rightmove tip is useful, thanks. I suspect that there are local property developers ready to move quickly on a desirable property. I need to declutter and tart up my house before putting it on the market. Or do I? Another idea I had was to hire storage space to clear the house then market it.

If you want to get on the market, then you need to be ruthless with some stuff and hide the rest somewhere, whether it's the boot of your car, the garage or a storage unit.

You'll get the opportunity to do a more leisurely declutter when you move anyway!!

If you wait until it's all properly sorted, you'll never finish

Contessa

cashndash wrote: »

If you want to get on the market, then you need to be ruthless with some stuff and hide the rest somewhere, whether it's the boot of your car, the garage or a storage unit.

You'll get the opportunity to do a more leisurely declutter when you move anyway!!

If you wait until it's all properly sorted, you'll never finish

Thanks for that-I'm thinking along those lines. This afternoon I had a go at the loft. Sorted out a couple of bags of books for the charity shop, loads of sporting gear, walking boots. But best of all was finding 3 boxes of stuff from when I was a teacher from the seventies! What fun it was burning the past!
So, the loft has changed from being insurmountable to manageable-I can do this!!

tek-monkey

pennyjar56 wrote: »

In our area ( Midlands) we're noticing that houses are SSTC fairly quickly (witihin weeks) when they're priced right. However, we've also seen one or two then coming back on the market. I wonder whether people are buying houses thinking they'll be able to get a mortgage and then finding they can't?

I'm noticing the same, also in the Midlands. Places priced well often only last a week or 2, those priced poorly have been on since I started seriously looking back in July. I have also seen a lot of the quick sales reappear, then go again shortly after. I always assumed this was down to the survey, as I thought everyone would get the mortgage approved first. Mind you, my AIP was way more then I could actually get a mortgage for!

downshifted

Hi Contessa

Are you looking North or South Devon? We sold our home and rented in Barnstaple 2 months ago with a view to buying asap. We have not found anything that suits us yet, but some houses are shifting quite quickly, others are hanging around - particularly those that seem over priced (and there are quite a few of those!).