Anyone else noticed asking prices are too high?

partialycloudy

Anyone else noticed asking prices are getting rather high?

We have had two properties under valued by the mortgage companies surveyour. And I'm noting properties sold back at beginning of the year for under £250K, but asking prices for similar properties now are priced at £280k.

Are the estate agents or sellers pushing their luck???

Lord_Baltimore

partialycloudy wrote: »

Are the estate agents or sellers pushing their luck???

Neither or perhaps both. Market forces will determine. At present, fortune is favouring the seller and his/her Agent.

partialycloudy

I dont know about fortune favoring the seller if they can't get their houses through a valuation.
Properties are definetly hanging around a lot longer, selling then coming back on the market..... in our area anyway. Just wondered if anyone had noticed the same thing?

sirmosh

I don't know if it's always the case but after a few valuations agents seemed to say we should put the house up for X amount with a view to getting £10-20,000 less. Perhaps people are pricing with a view to selling for less.

LisbonLaura

Buyers are but pawns in the only game in town: banker engineered asset values.

cloo

I'm in London... they're always too high. OTOH, after keeping my eye on market since spring there's been a definite slowing and evidence that people are calling 'enough' on certain price points, such as starting to see asking prices cut, which didn't happen 3 months ago.

AndyT678

I'm definitely starting to see a lot more price reductions coming through on rightmove alerts in the last few weeks.

needabed

The mortgage companies surveyor doesn't understand the market...

TheCyclingProgrammer

Obviously this is just anecdotal, but around the south east (Essex) where we've been house hunting for the last three months, I've noticed an increase in asking price reductions and also quite a few houses selling then reappearing on the market a month or two later.

Obviously house sales can fall through for a number of reasons so hard to read too much into that. But I do get a sense that vendors/agents are starting to reach the limits of how much they can increase asking prices and are getting pushback.

A common tactic I've noticed is to reduce the headline price but then add a price range in the description, e.g. one house we were interested in (but ruled out in the end due to lack of decent broadband in the area) was on for a few months at £275k, went on with a new agent a few weeks ago and yesterday was reduced to £250k with "asking price £250-275k" in the description.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me; if you reduce the headline asking price you're just inviting people to make offers at or below the bottom of the range. I don't see why anybody would offer near the top of the range unless there was lots of competition for the property (in which case it probably would have sold already).

partialycloudy

Cyclingprogrammer - Thats where we are looking - Essex! So glad i am not the only one to notice it. So frustrating!

We are waiting on the surveyours response to our comparibles after he/she under valued it...2nd time this has happened and i don't hold out much hope of the surveyour changing their mind....fingers crossed we can get the seller to drop his price!

jjlandlord

The more the vendors and estate agents are convinced that the market's orientation is seriously upward the more they will inflate asking prices in order to catch the top offer.
At one point it will be too much, perhaps it's started to be.