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

Crashy_Time

Well done....:T

Crashy_Time

phoebe1989seb wrote: »

Where we currently live - West Midlands - there seem to be rather a lot of houses (mainly in the rather wide £400k - £1.5m price bracket) that are taking an age to sell, yet the vendors seem reluctant to lower their asking prices. Compared to recent sales many seem overpriced by up to £100k.

One neighbour who put their five bed house on in August 2016 for £850k, told us they expect it to take three years to sell! They have cash available for their onward purchase which they've already identified. This new (to them) house is about £700k.

This whole way of doing things seems alien to us, who have always priced to sell quickly and in half a dozen sales have never had to wait longer than about six months to find a buyer, our last two sales taking a matter of ten days and five weeks respectively to get to sstc.

I do sympathise, however, with those that for whatever reason feel they have to hold out for a higher price, but personally I would lose the will to live if we had to keep any property we were selling on the market for years

To me a healthy property market = You put it on the market, it sells, buyer and seller are happy, end of story. We don`t have a healthy market at the moment, prices need to come down a lot to get balance.

iantojones40

forum_posts wrote: »

Do you, or anyone else, know where these "stupidly over priced" houses are? People have lots of reasons for selling houses and one/two of them may be they need to achieve a certain price before they can move to their desired location but they are not in a major hurry to sell their property so they can wait till someone sees things the way they do.

But I do agree with you I wouldn't wait that long to achieve a price, unless the original valuation was even higher and they have been gradually lowering the value. Either way I still wouldn't be posting the way some do on here, it's as if they are gloating which is the reason they keep on posting.

I can only repeat what I've said previously.... it's the ones who have their houses on the market for extraordinary lengths of time and go through numerous different estate agents and then come on here whining and moaning about ''useless estate agents'' and ''insulting offers'' that I have absolutely no sympathy for.

I do find it an odd quirk of the housing market that in any other market place somebody trying and failing miserably to sell something for 10,20 even 30% more than it's worth would be roundly ridiculed and labelled as being stupid, greedy and deluded.. a kite flyer and a time waster. Yet when it comes to selling houses this behaviour is tolerated and even applauded by some.

Crashy_Time

iantojones40 wrote: »

I can only repeat what I've said previously.... it's the ones who have their houses on the market for extraordinary lengths of time and go through numerous different estate agents and then come on here whining and moaning about ''useless estate agents'' and ''insulting offers'' that I have absolutely no sympathy for.

I do find it an odd quirk of the housing market that in any other market place somebody trying and failing miserably to sell something for 10,20 even 30% more than it's worth would be roundly ridiculed and labelled as being stupid, greedy and deluded.. a kite flyer and a time waster. Yet when it comes to selling houses this behaviour is tolerated and even applauded by some.

Yes, very good observation, property and property prices are now an illness in peoples minds, it seems many can`t get over it. It was a "thing" started by bankers and politicians to inject money into the economy (to hide other woes, and make big bonus/votes on top) and the fact that large numbers of the population were persuaded makes me feel sad actually, but that is how music/investments/cornflakes/movies etc. etc. have always been sold, on building positive sentiment, the problem with housing is that it is a basic requirement, and that makes me even more sad that people could buy into (literally) this financially/socially dangerous nonsense.

forum_posts

kilby_007 wrote: »

Are you for real? The whole market is overpriced! Does the fact that people are still buying them make them reasonably priced? Or does it reflect the government's strategy for cheap money/low supply is working pretty well for them & their pals "investments'? What you describe is waiting for "the greater fool". There comes a point when even the greatest fools begin to think twice.

What I meant is do you, or anyone else, know where these stupidly over priced houses are that forum members are actually selling on this thread?

forum_posts

iantojones40 wrote: »

I can only repeat what I've said previously.... it's the ones who have their houses on the market for extraordinary lengths of time and go through numerous different estate agents and then come on here whining and moaning about ''useless estate agents'' and ''insulting offers'' that I have absolutely no sympathy for.

I do find it an odd quirk of the housing market that in any other market place somebody trying and failing miserably to sell something for 10,20 even 30% more than it's worth would be roundly ridiculed and labelled as being stupid, greedy and deluded.. a kite flyer and a time waster. Yet when it comes to selling houses this behaviour is tolerated and even applauded by some.

Totally agree with you. The house I'm trying to sell is probably peanuts compared to the houses people are selling on here. I'm trying to achieve near asking price for my house which is competitivelypriced for my area so I can move to different property which suits my needs for the longer term. There are a lot of houses in my area for sale because people tend to want to move once they start having familys.

kilby_007

forum_posts wrote: »

What I meant is do you, or anyone else, know where these stupidly over priced houses are that forum members are actually selling on this thread?

The term "stupidly overpriced" vs "overpriced" is open to interpretation, but given that the whole market is overpriced, it follows that most houses being sold by forum members are also overpriced.

When you're selling a house in a booming market people tend to go with whichever agent gives them the highest valuation with the most reasonable rate. In a stagnant or falling market you have to change tact and people haven't. We sold our house last year with an agent that valued our property 20K (about 8%) below what one of the other agents priced it. The agent who gave us the higher valuation dominates the local market but you'll also see that once they obtain a vendor they then aggresively reduce properties to get them sold, and if they don't sell they sit on the market for ages. Secondly we couldn't justify a 15-20% increase in our property over 2 years (yes we had made some improvements, but not 40K worth) so we went with the common sense approach and sold our house within a week. I wouldn't say there's any economic reason for house prices to increase in the last year in that area (even supply is not really an issue) yet houses are going up for sale for 5-10% more than we sold our property for, and are not selling. Some properties (similar sizes/designs by the same builder on the same estate) were for sale before we sold our property and are still for sale now over a year later....

Crashy_Time

https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2017/1/investment-firm-claims-some-london-asking-prices-cut-30-per-cent

PeterPanic

As somebody who offered on a house before Christmas and is now waiting to complete I thought I would give my experience of the current housing market (In the South East anyway). There is no doubt that the recent changes to the Buy To Let rules have massively affected the market. As well as the changes to the Tax and stamp duty rules, there is also a requirement for the monthly rental to be 145% of the monthly mortgage if the interest rates were 5.5%. What this basically means is that to buy a Buy To Let property these days you are probably going to need to have a 45% deposit and pay an additional £10K+ in stamp duty.

This means that the flat market is now pretty much dead, from what I can see the same properties have been listed for months on end, and a good percentage of these have had the prices reduced. The sums still do not add up as a BTL investment anymore, so I can personally see the price of flats continuing to fall in 2017.

With regards to houses there is precious little on the market at the moment and I keep seeing the same properties for sale, nothing new has been added in the last month or so. I am a first time buyer which is pretty rare in this market, so I had a reasonable amount of leverage when it came to offers. I offered 5% under the asking price of the house I wanted and made it clear this was my best offer and I would not be offering more. This offer was accepted as the sellers realised that they would not find another buyer in my position and were desperate to move as they had found the house they wanted.

The second half of 2016 was slow and asking prices have definitely started to reduce towards the end of 2016. I suspect flats will continue to fall in 2017 and I would not be surprised by 10% falls by the end of the year. My gut feel is that at the very least house prices will remain static in 2017 and could well fall over the coming year.

So why did I buy you ask if I have no confidence prices will increase in 2017? Well, my personal circumstances ment the time was right, and I think I got a good house at a decent price. It is certainly a house I can live in forever if need be, and it also means I can stop worrying about not being on the property ladder. I am divorced and have not been able to own a property for the last three years, having watched prices increase by 30-40% in that time. I have no intention of ever selling this house and it means I can stop worrying about prices after religiously checking rightmove every single day for months/years on end.

For those who cannot sell their house there is only one reason I am afraid, it is too expensive. As somebody said above, 95% of buyers look at property on rightmove so it makes zero difference which agent it is with. All buyers have a budget so they will be comparing your property with all the others in their price range and deciding which one offers the best value.

For those of you hoping the new year will bring increased offers I personally think this will not happen. If you are really serious about selling then you need to price your property to sell and offer hard on the property you wish to buy. Surely it is better to accept an offer and get on with your life rather than hold out for another £5K which in reality is going to make little difference to your life long term.

Also don't forget that the property still needs to be valued by the mortgage company before they will lend the money, so even if you get a good offer there is no guarantee the mortgage company will lend you the money if they think you have offered too much. They might have done in a rising market but in a static/falling market they will not want to risk getting their fingers burnt.

forum_posts

Estate agent contacted me yesterday and I have two viewings on Saturday, 10.30am and 1pm. I have a lot of viewings so people are interested but not enough to put in an offer which can be negotiated. Lots of nice photos and a floorplan on Rightmove so viewers know what to expect. Sometimes I do think that the estate agent may be saying to viewers of other properties that it would be good to check mine out too, I'll ask on Saturday as I'm doing the earlier viewing myself.

The viewer yesterday did not show up:mad: