MSE News: Highest monthly house asking prices rise for a decade

zappahey

googler wrote: »

and this contradicts my point (with less FTB properties ... the average goes up because the remaining properties are weighted toward higher prices) in what way...?

If there's less lower-priced properties coming onto RM, the average of the asking prices goes up, surely?

It doesn't, you were just wrong in your statement,

mungobella

This report doesn't surprise me, though I doubt it will result in much real change. There were half-dozen houses for sale on my street last spring/summer that didn't sell. They went off the market in the fall. One house sold on the street (finally) and now all the others are back on the market at their old (and obviously unrealistically high) prices. I find it hard to believe there will be much movement.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Gra76 wrote: »

everytime something comes up that fits the bill it's unrealistically priced, with sellers that are unrealistic in their demands. Some more than others, but always unrealistic.

If the price is truly unrealistic, then none of them will sell at all and all of those houses will still be on the market after a couple of years.

In which case either those vendors will decide they don't want to sell those houses and won't sell until some point in the future when prices have risen, or the vendors will have to lower their prices to sell before then.

However I would suggest that if, as you say, every suitable house has unrealistic vendors and after many months of searching you cannot find even a single house with realistic vendors then it's more likely that your price expectations are wrong than theirs.

The value of a house is defined as being a price that is acceptable to both a buyer and a seller.

Values are not dictated solely by those who wish to purchase a house. Without offering a price acceptable to a vendor as well, you won't be buying.

As it stands we're moving nowhere, not until people start becoming more realistic.

I suspect in this case you won't be moving then.

Prices are rising again now, and there's little prospect of any meaningful falls from here.

Gra76

Oh I agree completely Hamish, although the point I'm trying to make is that (at least in the area I'm looking to buy in) people are still pricing the properties as if the housing market is still booming when it clearly isn't, and are refusing to budge on price.

It'll soon become a buyers market again sooner or later if it isn't already, I'm sure of that.

Our current property was bought in 2002 when it was a sellers market. Prices were just starting to shoot up in the area and houses seemed to be getting bought up in a matter of days of being on the market. We managed to get first look at the property as we'd just missed out on one the week before and the EA said she'd give us the first appointment to view what is now our current house. We made an offer £500 under the asking price which they turned down. We paid the full asking price in the end, because we knew if we didn't the property would be sold soon after.

Fortunately that isn't the case anymore and buyers are in a much stronger position now I think. Or at least they will be when people start to realise that pricing properties well above the prices they were selling for at the peak of the market isn't going to get them sold anytime soon.

The delights of PropertyBee shows how long the houses on Rightmove have been on the market and of all the ones we've looked at there isn't one of them that hasn't been on for more than a year. The one I used in my more extreme example above had been on the market since 2008. Not surprising looking at what he's asking for it.

I should probably make it clearer that we've only looked at a small handful of houses over the last few months, as my wife has a checklist of things she requires from our next house and finding properties that suit hasn't always been easy. We've only looked at 5 in total, 3 of which I've enquired further about and been told in each case that the buyers won't accept a lower figure.

I'm sure one will pop up sooner or later that matches what we require and is, in my opinion at least, reasonably priced or prepared to negotiate on price. Until then I'll continue to keep looking. It's not going to lose me any sleep about it just yet.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Fair enough. Just be careful, as when prices start rising the last place you'll see it is property bee.