35% of houses will not sell in a year?

Davesnave

tyllwyd wrote: »

If it turns out to be true that a third of houses won't sell within a year - maybe that is a sign that the rules of the game are changing. We are all used to a market where houses typically sell within a few weeks or months of going up for sale. Maybe that's not going to be the case in the future, and waiting a year or more to sell is going to be the norm rather than the exception. Unless you are forced to sell, or you've inherited a house etc, for a lot of people they are better off living in the house/extending where they are alreay living rather than slashing the price of their own home and ending up in negative equity or not being able to afford the move to the next house.

Yes, that's maybe how it will be for those with lower motivation, at least in the short term, or while local markets remain inscrutable, as some still seem to be.

In the longer term, if we hit another period of recession, better motivated and financially able individuals will undercut the local market and drive prices down. The next house to sell in my old road went for £25k less than mine, even though prices were, by then, recovering.

The person I eventually bought from had divorced and then obtained a new £60k p.a. job 120 miles away. She 'lost' about £50k by selling quickly, or £25k, because her former husband shared this equally.

Do you think she cares about that now? Fortune favours the brave in times like these!

Eric1

NEH wrote: »

The cheapest one has gone under offer for the 2nd time in 4/5 months however it has severe timber rot and will cost a fair bit to sort it out so once that is added on it will cost the same as ours

Once that is added?
Added to the asking price?
No thank you. Most FTBs attracted to the cheapest one - because their bank simply won't lend them more - will want a discount for the problem.

dboswell

there is no such thing as a single housing market. there are thousands of micro markets

NEH

Eric1 wrote: »

Once that is added?
Added to the asking price?
No thank you. Most FTBs attracted to the cheapest one - because their bank simply won't lend them more - will want a discount for the problem.

They'd already discounted the flat to take account of the timber rot and the home report valuation was a fair bit below what the rest of us were valued at so I don't think they would have accepted below the offer over price as they had already taken the hit...

If the offer was real on that flat which we supsect it wasn't given it was under offer one day and then back on the next and now it's under offer again on the Solicitors property site but they haven't altered it on the acutal Solicitors site and so the saga continues and has been for that flat for months.

Tyllwyd yours is a valid point if we cut our flat price by 30K or discounted it to half price then we would be forced to rent for the next 20 odd years...Somehow stepping off the property ladder just to get the place sold and then not be able to get back on again just seems a bit ludicrious to me.

So most people's solution on here would be reduce your price and then when you can't afford somewhere else rent, are we to go the same way as France and be a nation of renters? In Scotland we already have a chronic shortage of rental property and if people are stepping off the property ladder then there will be even less...

Eric1

NEH wrote: »

They'd already discounted the flat to take account of the timber rot and the home report valuation was a fair bit below what the rest of us were valued at so I don't think they would have accepted below the offer over price as they had already taken the hit...

In today's climate, many FTBs don't care.
They won't even look at any property above the limit set by their bank.
So the timber rot does not prevent the current owner from living there.
Fine, it can stay, as long as the price is affordable

Davesnave

dboswell wrote: »

there is no such thing as a single housing market. there are thousands of micro markets

And they operate without reference to the national macro-market?

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying, but I guess there are some places that are more immune to external influences than others., like, say, Sandbanks, or waterside properties on the Fal estuary, select places in London & the Home Counties etc.

How many of us live in such locations?

poppysarah

pardal51 wrote: »

Is it because vendors are asking too much and not willing to negotiate?
Is it because of lending tightening from banks?
Is it????

Prices too high
Lending getting sensibly difficult again
People need big deposits (which will be easier to save for when house prices fall)
Bank of mum and dad is hopefully closed as they realise they have to fund their retirement not give their kids houses.
The vendors who don't want to drop price will remain unsold.


A house near me has finally sold after being on the market for over 2 years. Some houses have not been selling ... property bee is very helpful.

tyllwyd

Going back to the mobile phone example - the biggest difference between the mobile phone market and a house is that you can expect the value of a mobile phone to depreciate to zero within a relatively short time. But a house doesn't become obsolete in that way - there are plenty of people living in very desirable houses that are more than a hundred years old. And if the house falls down, you can clear the land and rebuild. So you might slash the price of a phone rather than having it clutter up your drawer, but if you have a house that you can't sell, you have various options - slash the price, wait it out, rent it out, take it off the market. Just because your house hasn't sold in a year, doesn't automatically make it worthless to you - so a slow market doesn't automatically mean the same thing as a price crash.

myhouse_2

NEH wrote: »

Oh course people would buy it at 50% less than the asking price, they would get it at a price that was paid 10 odd years ago...You would be a mug to sell it at that!

and as i keep saying but it gets delibrately ignored one has just gone that is on the market at a higher price than us and yes the lower price one has gone under offer but it's got severe timber rot that will likely cost hundreds if not a grand or two to sort it out bringing it to the same price as us.


and please answer my question which again has been ignored repeatedly the other people with the same Solicitor as us did what you said would bring in buyers and it didn't work, they haven't had any more interest than ours even at that lower price so how would lowering the price make a difference if someone has already done that and failed...Or should we all knock 10 years off our prices...

Let me discuss the points head on so you don't think I'm avoiding the questions.
Yes you would be crazy to drop the price 50% immediately. This was just an example - you need to sell for the best price the market will give you by reducing gradually until you find the right threshold.
The points I'm making are related more to the general market rather than just 5 houses in your area but the principle is the same. One house managed to get a buyer fairly quickly at a good price while none of the others are selling (even at lower prices). This suggests to me that the one seller got lucky by finding a willing buyer in an illiquid market. Maybe you'll get lucky too, but on balance probably you'll have to reduce further to get a sale (if you are keen to sell now).
You say that another house reduced their price and still couldn't sell - I get the impression that because of this you think the problem is with the lack of buyers. To me it says they need to reduce their price again. If they reduced from 100 to 90 when the market only supports 80, they may well have not bothered reducing at all.

I hope you are lucky enough to find that buyer that is willing to pay more than anyone else in the market - there are some around.

Alan2020

tyllwyd wrote: »

But a house doesn't become obsolete in that way - there are plenty of people living in very desirable houses that are more than a hundred years old. And if the house falls down, you can clear the land and rebuild. So you might slash the price of a phone rather than having it clutter up your drawer, but if you have a house that you can't sell, you have various options - slash the price, wait it out, rent it out, take it off the market. Just because your house hasn't sold in a year, doesn't automatically make it worthless to you - so a slow market doesn't automatically mean the same thing as a price crash.

I am sorry but a house does become obsolete, in fact all houses do. The land if a freehold property appreciates, the house depreciates.

Its like Tiggers Broom, you take an old house and tell me how much is the so called original structure, maybe the bricks, Roof is gone, windows etc interior as well (I don't mean a listed building) If you did that to a phone, same case, but new circuit board, new touch screen, it will also look like it appreciates. But does it?

Also people want to sell in their lifetime and enjoy the wealth.

Hey you know what do you want to become the richest person in the universe, if so check this out, buy all the farmlands, waste lands of the world at a discount price now, in 100,000 years you will be single most powerful entity in the universe :rotfl: