Put house on market now or wait till spring?

phoebe1989seb

Agree with Loopy......the last few houses we have sold have all gone SSTC in either March or early October -

1) house on market early Spring 2007 - this was also a very quirky & relatively expensive (£600k) property - one offer in May which fell through (buyer pulled out pre-survey), then another viewer offered in early October. Sale completed end of November.

2) house on market early March 2011 - another quirky period house that stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb in an area of modern retirement-type homes - priced realistically to achieve quick sale as my parents were ill and we needed to re-locate closer. We *lost* £60k on restoration costs, but accepted an offer within two weeks. Sale completed mid May.

3) (my parents') house on market end of July 2012 - bad timing but had to sell to fund their nursing home fees - accepted an offer during second week of October. Sale completed early December.

4) (our current) house on market beginning of September 2014 - another period *marmite* (thatched) house. Priced below EA valuation as we didn't want to lose our onward purchase......very few viewings initially - and mid-range period houses tend to take up to twelve months to sell here - so dropped price to £10k over our bottom line and had a flurry of viewings, three offers in two days and went SSTC (at asking price) during first week of October.

In our current position we knew from past experience that if we didn't get an (acceptable) offer within the first two weeks of October we could most likely kiss goodbye to a sale before Christmas.....hence deciding to drop the price when we did.

IMHO, the SDLT threshold will definitely have a bearing, but regardless of that I think I'd be waiting now till March.....definitely a good idea to let your EA know you are still open to interested parties/offers etc though!

Good luck