Apartment been on market 3 months and no viewings please help!

sarah_elton

I sold my flat in January 2009 when the a**e had absolutely fallen out of the market and it was flooded with flats. Mine sold in a week. Others were marketing at £125k (what a couple had sold for at the absolute peak the summer before), I marketed at £112,500 and accepted £103k.

It doesn't matter what property it is; if you're not getting interest the price is wrong. There will always be some savvy buyers out there who can see past a bad Rightmove listing. It's a buyers market at the moment.

Half the building probably is in NE because you pay a massive premium to buy a new-build and therefore you need to own them for a good number of years. Selling after only a few years you'll take a loss. NE doesn't matter one bit unless you want to sell.

Can you keep the flat to rent out? You should be able to switch to a BTL mortgage if you have 70% equity in the place. The choices are that or drop the price.

As for moving to your next house, it might not cost as much as Rightmove is making you think. After selling my flat we rented and started looking for a house to buy. It took just over a year because a limited number were coming on the market due to the poor conditions. For what we wanted, in our area, things were being marketed at £275k and were just sitting on the market. I felt that was totally OTT. Finally in March this year a house came on at £232,995 (the sellers had seen something they were desperate to buy so wanted a quick sale) which was far more like it so we snapped it up and move in next week. It doesn't matter if you take a hit on the value of your place if you can get the same or more off what you're currently budgeting for your next place.

mynameisdave

Paul1706 wrote: »

Stealeruk, do you really think Miller homes would have sold some of the plots at 50% of the asking price?

Probably not, but it seems many people have got one for around £110000-£115000

If they had a 15% deposit they have a good chance of getting out without being in negative equity

iB1

Two things would put me off viewing:

1) The slopy ceilings - I'm quite tall and would be forever paranoid about whacking my head somewhere

2) Storage heaters. I hate them

andrewmp

Paul1706 wrote: »

The bedroom is actually a decent size, just the bed is king sized with slats on the side which make it even bigger. I actually opted out of having an en suite in the bedroom too, so imagine the size of the other aprtments which actually do have en suites! So if everyone seems to think that the asking price should be 95 to 100K then most people on the development must be in negative equity as I cant see many people having £35 000 to put down as a deposit when they bought them. The sloping roofs dont really impact on the living space which people would be able to see if they came for a viewing.

Yeah, you're probably right there

Flats were hardest hit with falls. I think the prices were over inflated as they were very fashionable for some reason. A lot of BTL investors bought them too, obviously that market is pretty much dead at the moment too.

I'm not sure how Middlesbrough compares to Sunderland, pricewise, but that same flat wouldn't sell here, not at that price.

I'd hazard a guess that it would sell for about £75k, but that isn't what you want to hear, for obvious reasons.

laurel7172

You probably won't get many viewings with so many in the block up for sale. I know I would be unlikely to view more than one-probably the cheapest. Perhaps you need to find some sort of USP that tempts people in? Do you have (different) luxury appliances or fitted wardrobes or loft storage space that the others don't?

andrewmp

laurel7172 wrote: »

You probably won't get many viewings with so many in the block up for sale. I know I would be unlikely to view more than one-probably the cheapest. Perhaps you need to find some sort of USP that tempts people in? Do you have (different) luxury appliances or fitted wardrobes or loft storage space that the others don't?

Looking at the photos, I doubt he'll have loftspace.

mynameisdave

andrewmp wrote: »

Looking at the photos, I doubt he'll have loftspace.

Description suggests there is.

ENTRANCE HALL
Panel effect entrance door, electric radiator, entry phone point, solid wood flooring, inset ceiling lights, smoke alarm, access to loft space

olly300

mynameisdave wrote: »

I agree, I think the rooms are not as small as you would expect for a flat/apartment (granted the living room is narrow but comparative to the other one for sale at £95k this should be priced a bit higher. Obviously the market has decided that it is still too high though.

The problem is people aren't coming for a viewing.

Get a photo with a smaller double bed in to make the room look bigger. You have an advantage over some of the others selling that due to not having fitted wardrobes you can make the room look bigger.

Also get a floor plan of the flat.

If you can now change your estate agent and instruct a new one do so.

Owain_Moneysaver

dopester wrote: »

Borrowing words from other cultures is no bad thing imo.

English word apartment: a separate room. (F.,—Ital.,—L.) was originally appartemente, from the French language, derived from the Italian appartamento, from the verb appartare -- to separate Appartare was formed from a meaning "to" + parte meaning "part"

And in Scotland we add together the reception rooms and bedrooms and call them apartments, eg a 4-apartment house.

"Ay've a lovely four-apairtment hoose oan the fourteenth flair" says Mrs McSporran fae Coocaddens.

Paul1706

Thanks Olly300 I am thinking of appointing a new estate agent soon as the conract with the current one expires shortly. The current estate agent hasnt even contacted me once since appointing them. I am going to ensure that the new estate agent takes photos that do not make the place look small as well. I am also thinking of dropping the asking price to £99995 and see if that has any effect. If that doesn work then I think I might just have to try and rent it out!