Why are some houses on the market for so long?

Housebuy12345

I’ve been house hunting (from my phone) for many months. I’ve noticed a few reasonable houses are still on the market. Eg https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-80069516.html this house.

Any red flags I should be looking out for?

martinthebandit

Because they are
1. overpriced either for their location, size or condition; or
2. They have neighbours you really won't like living next to; or
3. The owners don't really want to sell

AnotherJoe

4. The owners have been unlucky. Sale agreed after several months and then fell through after several more months. This can happen several times in a row.
5. (Variation on (3) it's a divorce and one party wishes to frustrate the other by making it difficult to sell.
6. There is an undisclosed issue which makes selling problematic once you get into the details.

onwards&upwards

That house in Salford is not in a great location.

quantumlobster

7. They have a niche target market (unusual layout, etc.)
8. The owner has a particular price they want/need to achieve, and they don't have time pressure, so they wait

AdrianC

Only since last November? That's not that long...

There's places sticking for three or four years.

davidmcn

9. It's actually under offer but nobody's updated the Rightmove listing yet.


And I agree that less than six months isn't all that long.

KatieDee

• Overpriced.
• Badly marketed
• Undesirable area
• Unrealistic vendors
• Vendors who don't really want to move

This is my experience so far! The house we had an offer accepted on has been on the market since August 2018 and had one price reduction during that time, of around 2%. The vendor wasn't in a rush to move and had a figure in her head that she wouldn't drop below.

It does make me worry that we might experience the same issues if we ever come to sell, and maybe I'm just not recognising blatant issues with it, but we love the house and we're not looking for an investment, so I'm trying not to think about it.

AdrianC

You missed one, Katie.

Slow market area.

Nothing round here - Western Herefordshire - sells quickly, unless it's very cheap, simply because there aren't that many potential buyers, simply because it's very lightly populated.

lookstraightahead

There's a house by me that's been on the market a long time. Agent said it's because the vendors have unrealistic expectations. It was the agent that gave them the unrealistic expectations in the first place.

KatieDee

AdrianC wrote: »

You missed one, Katie.

Slow market area.

Nothing round here - Western Herefordshire - sells quickly, unless it's very cheap, simply because there aren't that many potential buyers, simply because it's very lightly populated.

Yes, that's a good one! I hadn't thought of that