What is the house market doing at the moment?

TheDink

I've recently put my house up for sale, and in nearly 3 weeks have had only 3 viewings...is this normal for the market at the moment?

The house is priced reasonably, bang in the middle of the range for similar properties, the agent isn't the biggest in the local area but they do advertise in both local property papers and on 7 different websites and seem to market properties actively. I chose them because they had quite a few "For Sale" boards which turned to "Sold" quite quickly.

Is there anything I could do to increase interest (apart from lowering the price which I don't want to do just yet), or is it just that the market hasn't picked up yet? Are there still too few first time buyers to generate interest in smaller properties?

Thanks.
Sarah

catkins

Where do you live Sarah? I am in Kent and houses definitely are not moving here. A lot of sellers have reduced the price.

I think that it's partly because first time buyers can no longer afford to buy, people are waiting till after the election to see what happens to interest rates and also waiting to see what happens to the market.

alanobrien

sarahllord wrote:

I've recently put my house up for sale, and in nearly 3 weeks have had only 3 viewings...is this normal for the market at the moment?

The house is priced reasonably, bang in the middle of the range for similar properties, the agent isn't the biggest in the local area but they do advertise in both local property papers and on 7 different websites and seem to market properties actively. I chose them because they had quite a few "For Sale" boards which turned to "Sold" quite quickly.

Is there anything I could do to increase interest (apart from lowering the price which I don't want to do just yet), or is it just that the market hasn't picked up yet? Are there still too few first time buyers to generate interest in smaller properties?

Thanks.
Sarah

A lot depends on your agent.
We sold our place last year and the first agent we used was dire.
They got us only 3 viewings in 10 weeks although at least one made a
(later aborted) offer.

We had a minimum 10 week exclusive contract with them so it was a painful
time. In all it took us around 6 months to sell and that was with a keenly priced place in good order.

We moved to south Bucks and prices are still rising here albeit slowly.
A place we looked at late last year priced at 385k just sold for 415k
totally ridiculous amount of money imho.

Dont forget you can put your place on the internet as well as using your agent. There are free listing sites check out

http://www.ahomeofmyown.co.uk

for some pointers.
I would tell the agent that you are considering this option, call it an incentive plan for them!

Good luck with the sale

Spendless

I'd say totally depends on where you are.

Bottom end of market still going well here
The small 2bed MTH I sold in March last year for £40,000 went back up for sale last week for £61,950.

To buy bigger 3 bed MTH in area costs about £89,000

What are getting stuck are ones like mine 3 bed semi worth £130,000-£140,000.

I should imagine the reason these are struggling as they are too expensive for FTB but anyone in a 3 bed MTH wanting to move up is looking at adding £50,000 to their mortgage.

bridiej

catkins wrote:

Where do you live Sarah? I am in Kent and houses definitely are not moving here. A lot of sellers have reduced the price.

I think that it's partly because first time buyers can no longer afford to buy, people are waiting till after the election to see what happens to interest rates and also waiting to see what happens to the market.

We're in Kent too, Hythe to be exact and we've noticed quite a few SOLD signs going up recently which must be a good sign!

System

Its a bit slow here in the Midlands.

rchddap1

Oxfordshire is a tad on the slow side too. Or at least it is in my little village anyway. A few for sale signs, and not many sold signs.

dougk_2

I think its hit and miss really at the moment. Prices seem to be steady here in Reading and actually rising in some parts. I think houses above £200k are not budging at the moment but the smaller ones are.

The estate agent is key when selling we changed three times. The last one has been much better and we were having 3 or 4 viewers a week. The first one was hopeless - 2 viewers in 2 months!

TheDink

I'm in Berks, selling a 2 bed terrace. I have seen other similar properties selling recently - maybe the timing is wrong and all the people who really want to buy have already bought and everyone else is waiting to see what happens with the election.

I have put an ad in the ad trader today, which is also appearing on line. Not the best online property selling site. I will consider others if things don't pick up with the agent.

If things really don't pick up and we find our dream home so become a bit more desperate to sell, does anyone know how much below market rate National Homebuyers tend to offer to buy a house?

Thanks all.

dougk_2

Is the property on rightmove?
Perhaps its the description or photo that is putting people off?
Also there are lots of 2 bed terrace houses about so people have a wide choice to pick from - is it a fairly new property or old (i.e victorian)?
It generally takes a week or two to get people interested in viewings so don't give up yet. Also with a bank holiday coming up, people tend to use this for "extended" viewing times.

Lemoncurd

We've just had an offer accepted on a 4 bed townhouse (terrace) in Berks. When we were looking I was surprised to find that only a couple of the houses we wanted to view were no longer available. Most of the houses had been on the market for several months and from looking on rightmove etc lots of them were on with 3 or 4 agents!!

I've quoted this somewhere on here before and hope I've got the details right this time but according to the Hometrack report for Feb this year the average sale price was 93.3% of the average asking price.
We tried offering around 6% below the asking price of the house we've gone for but the owner wouldn't accept any less (or should that be more ) than 3% under. They'd already dropped it by 10k and were asking 20k less than an almost identical house next door so we thought that was just about acceptable.