How long did it take you to sell your house (London)?

jahudson72

Hi, we currently have our house on the market, it's a one bed starter home with a garage, just wondering how long property is taking to shift in South London these days as lo and behold we know the house we want to buy but of course we need to sell ours before our the vendor is keen to take our offer.. I remember doing this ten years ago and it was easy then, properties flew out the doors and I was a FTB buying a chain free property and had the deal done and the keys in my hand in three weeks. Thanks.

ocalllo

we're not in London but we just exchanged - no chains.
took 16mths! 10wks from offer to complete.

good luck with sale

jahudson72

16 months! Man alive... wow, CONGRATULATIONS!!!

I think I am going to stop torturing myself on Rightmove until I get an offer on mine...

Londonsu

I think it will depend exactly what you are selling and where it is.

We sold our two bed Edwardian flat in South London within 4 days last year (didint even have time to for the EA to up a for sale sign) BUT and its a big but our flat was desirable high ceilings, own front door and garden and when we put it on the market we knew our EA had buyers on their books for a property like ours - so we were very lucky.

This year I know things are different, that saying a flat in the same terrace owned by mates of ours went on the market in May this year, and sold within a week.

I suppose it depends what your competition is and if your asking price is comparable to other similar houses in the same area.

Good Luck

hazyjo

I think the ol' 'location location location' comes into play here! South London is huge. Which part? Even then, it won't give you an answer.

I was in East London and had offers within three weeks (twice, as first sale fell through). But houses in less desirable roads were sitting on the market six months to a year later.

I think it comes down to how desirable your road is and what 'good points' your house has. Generally, one bed anythings can be harder to sell. Obviously that's different in popular areas, especially the nearer to London you get.

Doubt anyone would accept an offer before you get a buyer for yours.

Good luck.

Jx

brit1234

As a FTB living in London I'm considering buying outside the capital. With all the foreign investors buying in central London it is falsely supporting the house prices round the edge.

Its got to the stage I am not even bothering to look at London properties any more. Increasingly my friends are looking outside London as well as you can get far more for your money. Also South London has a poor reputation.

May be worth you trying to market it to Chinese nationals who want study flat for their children

mustang1

brit1234 wrote: »

As a FTB living in London I'm considering buying outside the capital. With all the foreign investors buying in central London it is falsely supporting the house prices round the edge.

Its got to the stage I am not even bothering to look at London properties any more. Increasingly my friends are looking outside London as well as you can get far more for your money. Also South London has a poor reputation.

May be worth you trying to market it to Chinese nationals who want study flat for their children

Where do you get this from? As in all parts of the country, there are parts of London - North, South, East and West which are less desirable than others. Some parts of South London are very nice!

To the OP - where is your flat? My sister has been trying to sell her 1 bed flat in Clapham Common for 6 months but has had no interest at all (4 viewings in 6 months!) so has taken it off the market and is going to rent it out. She was told that there has been a real surge recently of properties coming on the market - 1 and 2 bed flats and so there's a lot of competition out there.

Good luck with your sale.

Londonsu

mustang1 wrote: »

Where do you get this from? As in all parts of the country, there are parts of London - North, South, East and West which are less desirable than others. Some parts of South London are very nice!

To the OP - where is your flat? My sister has been trying to sell her 1 bed flat in Clapham Common for 6 months but has had no interest at all (4 viewings in 6 months!) so has taken it off the market and is going to rent it out. She was told that there has been a real surge recently of properties coming on the market - 1 and 2 bed flats and so there's a lot of competition out there.

Good luck with your sale.

I must admit to being a tad suprised about that, the flat I sold within 4 days last year and the flat my mates sold within a week in May was also in Clapham and from what the younger generation in my family say Clapham is still one of the sought after areas for FTBs

Pupnik

OP, you could find similar properties to yours and use Property Bee to find out how long they have been on the market for and what kind of price drops they have had, if any, to give you an idea of what you are up against.

jahudson72

Thanks for the hint about property bee. There are three similar properties up for sale around here and they've all been on less that four weeks so far. We have priced our property fairly. There is a house across the road that put up their house initially for 30K more than ours in the same week and they've dropped the price already.

I appreciate South London isn't for everyone. But we live in a nice road (I don't want to say where on a public forum), near great public transport links. Our neighbours are great. We just need to move as we're out of space and fancy more greenery.

It's true that there is a lot of property on the market out there. We have our eye on a number of properties which are twice the price of ours - we have a nice 25% deposit to put down on a new place so hoping that properties over the 3% stamp duty are taking longer to sell - which does seem to be the case.

Our agent also says he's busy. He's got 117 properties on his books though which I think sounds a lot but then he's selling 6 a week.

Ho hum. Just have to keep my fingers and toes crossed. I've forgotten how tense all this house moving stuff is. I really don't want to be here at Christmas that's for sure...

Thanks to everyone for their replies, appreciate the advice.

kmmr

Flats in my area (Hammersmith area) seem to be going under offer in days. There are a few hanging around, but they are very overpriced. Anything just normally overpriced seems to be going immediately.

And we are talking £350-£450k 1-2 bed flats with no garden! There is one 2 bedder on at 650k has languished and been withdrawn (after a drop to 639k). Had a nice garden, but not enough to justify that cost. Still only 70sqm internal.