Been on market 4 months and no viewings!

bowieben2

westv wrote: »

I see that the last two flats in your postcode sold in 2007

No. 36 Fieldway Close Nov 07 £114,000
No. 25 Fieldway Close Aug 07 £82,500

Do you know what these places are like?

According to the Land Reg figures Leeds prices have fallen about 12% since then

Edit: I also see that 21 Fieldway Close sold for £77,000 in Sept 08.

Hi
Yes, No.36 is ours. And I think No.25 and No.21 are very small 1 bedroom studio flats.

bowieben2

Squish_21 wrote: »

I am in a similar situation to yourself, with trying to sell a flat which I bought in Jan 07.

My thinking is that there is a lack of FTB's as they are too scared to jump on the property ladder right now.

The 5% gifted deposit sounds like a good idea, will it come out of the profit you make on the flat or your own savings?

Have you thought about renting it out?

Yeah its a really difficult situation!

The 5% will come out of our savings as we'll be making a massive loss on the flat.

We have thought about it, but we'd rather sell if we can.

bowieben2

casperlarue wrote: »

Check your contract with your current EA, are you tied in to a minimum number of weeks before you can give notice?

No viewings at all would suggest it's too expensive. I would think your target market is FTB's, or single/couples with no kids. What does your flat have that no other has, to tempt people in?

A quick search on Rightmove for LS13 postcode gives 11 2-bed flats, 80k to 100k, yours is the most expensive.

Otherwise your flat is very well presented, but there does seem to be overkill on the photos!

Ill check the contract when I get home from work. But if i remember right, I dont think there was a minimum number of weeks to give notice, but I vaguely remember talk of a £100 charge if we decide to go with someone else.

Yeah its looking like the price is definitely the issue here. What would you guys recommend dropping the asking price to?

sonastin

I don't think that the 5% deposit is much of an incentive to be honest. Some FTBs won't understand what it is. A lot of mortgage lenders won't entertain the idea. Most people would be happier with a 5% drop in the asking price than mess around trying to accomodate a vendors gifted deposit.

If you are keen to sell, you need to at least match the asking price of the other flat so that you are competitive. To really get it moving, your price needs to be lower than theirs to tempt people in. There really is a shortage of FTBs though so you could end up just chasing each other down in price with no one even watching. If it were me, I would tell the EA to drop the 5% deposit and set the asking price the same as the other flat and see how that goes...

carefullycautious

The lease is too short. Banks wont lend on such a short lease. Why havent you extended?

DPJames

£90K might get you some viewings, £85K might get it sold. Can you afford to drop it that much though? Saying that though, losing another 10-15% on this house might be an easier pill to swallow if you can get a similar discount on your next property. We're all in this together.

Eric1

bowieben2 wrote: »

We spoke to the estate agents about lowering the price, and they said they didn't feel the price was the problem and they advised us to offer a 5% deposit incentive, which we have done about a month ago, but has made no difference.

bowieben2 wrote: »

They were saying the problem is lack of FTB's so offering the deposit incentive would help them.

What kind of twisted logic is that?
There could be FTBs or investors out there with max budget of 95K but wary of "deposit incentives" and other gimmicks.

bowieben2

carefullycautious wrote: »

The lease is too short. Banks wont lend on such a short lease. Why havent you extended?

We questioned that, both with our estate agents and our surveyor. We were advised it wouldnt make that much of a difference. The other flat for sale at £89k has extended his and it cost him £1, but his annual ground rent has gone up from £30 to £300. We felt that for a FTB a £300 a year ground rent would put them off. We were going to leave it as is and just inform any potential buyers that itll only cost £1 to extend it to 125 years.

Do you think it would be better to extend the lease?

bowieben2

DPJames wrote: »

£90K might get you some viewings, £85K might get it sold. Can you afford to drop it that much though? Saying that though, losing another 10-15% on this house might be an easier pill to swallow if you can get a similar discount on your next property. We're all in this together.

We could just afford to sell at £90k but were looking at close to a £25k+ loss if we go any further. If we dropped it to £85k then wouldnt people be coming in with offers at around 80? and we cant afford to go that low.

bowieben2

Another thing is, we have found a house we love, and if we were in a better position with ours we would definitely put a good offer in. Would it be a good idea to switch estate agents to the same as this one, they would then have double the incentive to push ours??