asking price v sold price

Milliewilly

Went to an open viewing today on a property in Sheffield that needs complete renovation. Its in a very desirable area. There were about 50 people viewing this afternoon and the agent told me another 30 booked tomorrow plus whever else just turns up! So I think I will be looking at the joy of sealed bids.

LandyAndy

Doozergirl wrote: »

Averages are pointless and of no use at all in the real world of buying and selling houses. It has never occurred to me to offer based on averages, only on what I have been prepared to pay or indeed only marketed at what I was prepared to sell for.

Indeed. The housing market is so heterogeneous that the concept of an average house price for the entire country is valueless. Some types of property (eg inner city apartments) have been very volatile in price, other types (eg family homes in the shire counties) much less so. As ever, pay what you think it's worth to you.

Patr100

westv wrote: »

For individual areas just type in a postcode into Hometrack and it will give you the information.

Where? I can only see it offering a valuation for a charge of £19.95?

Doozergirl

Patr100 wrote: »

Where? I can only see it offering a valuation for a charge of £19.95?

From the front page you enter your postcode then you will see a list of your house and your neighbours.

Continue to scroll down and you will see a map of the local area - just above that there are some boxes telling you sale price:asking price, average number of viewings to acheive sale and last month's house price change.

farmerboy

But surely alot of this is down to what the seller actually wants for the house?

We are about to put our house on the market, not had any valuation yet but houses locally are on around the £100k-£110k. Now, and maybe its my agri dealer background, I have a figure that I need in mind, but the house goes on the market at more than that figure. This allows for the movement (or low bids) and the buyer think they are happy as they have managed to get x ammount of the asking price, and we are happy as we're reached the actual ammount we needed in the first place.

Never heard of a house being sold for the actual asking price.

jenny74

Average prices means very little to me, it varies depending on all sorts of things, ie area, how realistic the asking price is. For example, we sold our house for £153000 (asking price was £158950) but the house we bought was very overpriced and we eventually agreed a price of £200000, the asking price was £219950 and had previously been £240000.

Jue_xx

jenny74 wrote: »

Average prices means very little to me, it varies depending on all sorts of things, ie area, how realistic the asking price is. For example, we sold our house for £153000 (asking price was £158950) but the house we bought was very overpriced and we eventually agreed a price of £200000, the asking price was £219950 and had previously been £240000.

Similar situation here:

House we're selling:

Asking price = £215,000 (went on the market in Jul 09)
Sold price = £205,000 (sold Oct 09)

House we're buying:

Originally on at £300,000 in April 08
Reduced to £275,000 in April 09
We're buying it for £260,000 (Oct 09)

(yes, it's a rubbish price, but we offered £250,000 first and they rejected it!:mad:)

Doozergirl

farmerboy wrote: »

Never heard of a house being sold for the actual asking price.

Agree with your post entirely, except that bit! You have never heard of a house selling for asking price? The vendors you have experience of can't have tried very hard if they sold any time between 1997 - 2007! Though the fundamentals are evidently similar, most property buyers in a bouyant market wouldn't even think to barter with a vendor. Most would offer a very small amount less than asking which can almost always be read as being prepared to pay full asking.

In this market everyone seems to expect a discount regardless of whether the price is reasonable or not; going a little high has worked for me this year. In a bouyant marketplace I would always market at the price I wanted - and get it.