Waiting for a buyer... Anyone want to join me?

sheff6107

In the Ribble Valley in Lancashire here. Had two viewers last month, but nothing since.

The market saw a brief flurry last month, going off Rightmove, but its gone back to the usual post-referendum deadness here.

No houses coming on the market, nothing selling.

phoebe1989seb

Sorry to hear that, Sheffs.....I guess things will be slowing down in most places now though. When we sold (South Wiltshire) two years ago, we accepted an offer in the early part of October then the market slowed. Had we not found a buyer then we'd planned to cone off the market and relist in the New Year. Fingers crossed for you!

Here there are still a few properties getting listed - and one or two went SSTC in the last week - but those that know the area really well (we're originally from darn Sarth and only moved up here two years ago ) say it's not unheard of for houses to sit on the market for three years before they sell!

What I'm finding strange is that with the ones that are getting offers, there seems to be little or no pattern, ie, some seem to be very overpriced fixer uppers whilst other similar but considerably cheaper houses are languishing.

A street near us has four quite similar houses for sale. They all date from the 1970s/80s. All detached. All in a similar size and state of repair - fairly good. Three are away from the main road and back onto woodland. The fourth is closer to the main road and no woodland. Of the three 'woodland' ones, one is priced at £440k. The other two and the 'non-woodland' one are priced between £340k and £380k. The only one SSTC - within three weeks of marketing - is the non-woodland one, close to the main road that is priced somewhere in the middle. It's the last one I'd have bought

Those properties locally that are 'renovated' (often by speculative property developers) are overpriced and not shifting, whilst some extremely expensive (for the area), large (3500 sq ft) new builds are getting snapped up.....go figure

sheff6107

Yep, there are a few new build estates near me where the houses get snapped up (I don't know why you'd want to live squashed in with other houses and have no garden personally).

And then there are others older builds that look like they'd sell straight away but are still unsold. Like you say, the pattern makes no sense.

I seem to have the problem where the husband or the wife loves it, but the other doesn't! On the plus side, that must mean some couple will both love it eventually.

I spoke to my mortgage broker earlier and he says the lenders are getting more and more finickity. The problem at the moment isn't low housing supply, it's that mortgage supply has been tightened despite the low rates because of the absurd MMR rules. If everybody who could afford a mortgage was given a mortgage, the number of first time buyers would rocket and prices would fall and it would help up the chain.

We are in the situation where mortgages are in effect at 7% because of the draconian rules and ownership has plummeted whilst number of renters has rocketed. This is exactly what the Taylor Wimpey report said the other week, but to agree with it is to be accused of not learning from the 2008 crash.

And Hammond the invisible chancellor will do absolutely nothing about it on Wednesday.

Crashy_Time

sheff6107 wrote: »

Yep, there are a few new build estates near me where the houses get snapped up (I don't know why you'd want to live squashed in with other houses and have no garden personally).

And then there are others older builds that look like they'd sell straight away but are still unsold. Like you say, the pattern makes no sense.

I seem to have the problem where the husband or the wife loves it, but the other doesn't! On the plus side, that must mean some couple will both love it eventually.

I spoke to my mortgage broker earlier and he says the lenders are getting more and more finickity. The problem at the moment isn't low housing supply, it's that mortgage supply has been tightened despite the low rates because of the absurd MMR rules. If everybody who could afford a mortgage was given a mortgage, the number of first time buyers would rocket and prices would fall and it would help up the chain.

We are in the situation where mortgages are in effect at 7% because of the draconian rules and ownership has plummeted whilst number of renters has rocketed. This is exactly what the Taylor Wimpey report said the other week, but to agree with it is to be accused of not learning from the 2008 crash.

And Hammond the invisible chancellor will do absolutely nothing about it on Wednesday.

Not sure prices would fall if more FTB`s were getting mortgages, surely that plus super low interest rates only encourages sellers to hold out longer for totally unsustainable prices? Prices will fall IMO when interest rates start to rise, and that won`t be far off it seems. Wouldn`t surprise me if causing a house price crash isn`t now seen as a vote winner because voters seem to be turning towards candidates/policies that tear down established values. The idea of sitting in a pretty average UK house and expecting it to earn more than the owner, as well as provide for retirement is looking quite quaint, if not downright ridiculous now. The banking sector will chase yield in new bubbles, commodities or whatever, housing will eventually be passed over as the bubble investment of choice.

Jox

Things do seem to have changed in the last few months. We had an AIP with HSBC in June and have recently gone back to HSBC as we wanted to buy a different house and they have taken £20k off what they had said they would lend us in June.

They do a stress test now to see if applicants can afford interest rates of 11% (the 2 yr fixed rate is 1.09% at the moment).

Crashy_Time

Jox wrote: »

Things do seem to have changed in the last few months. We had an AIP with HSBC in June and have recently gone back to HSBC as we wanted to buy a different house and they have taken £20k off what they had said they would lend us in June.

They do a stress test now to see if applicants can afford interest rates of 11% (the 2 yr fixed rate is 1.09% at the moment).

Are you sure it is 11%, that seems high, or was it always around 10%, before they just threw caution to the wind and got us into this economic/political mess? Not so good for you at the moment, but sellers will eventually adjust to the new reality, especially when rates start creeping up.

Jox

Yeah it was 11%, it was in writing so I saw it at the mortgage advisor appointment at HSBC on Saturday.

Not good for me but not disastrous. If we can't buy the house we want there are other cheaper options nearby.

Kirsty87

Our house has been up for 5 months, we have our 4th viewing on Saturday. We live in a town in the North East, its in a central location, priced well but such little interest. The viewings we have had were people not in a position to even think about moving so that I find annoying! We aren't in a position to drop the price due to the ridiculous charge to leave the fixed term on our mortgage which isn't at an end until June 17.

Jox

Can you not wait until June 2017 to move Kirsty? Make sure the agent only allows people to view if they are in a position to buy otherwise what is the point?

Crashy_Time

Jox wrote: »

Yeah it was 11%, it was in writing so I saw it at the mortgage advisor appointment at HSBC on Saturday.

Not good for me but not disastrous. If we can't buy the house we want there are other cheaper options nearby.

Ok, that is quite stringent, maybe the banks are starting to get their act together after all.