Selling house right now - hold off or reduce price?

System

Flutterby1000 wrote: »

I don't feel comfortable sharing the link here.

That's my point, there was plenty of interest in Aug (buyers are either still in chain or didn't like the wider area) but it stopped this past week, when you'd expect things to pick up with school holidays.

It was priced correctly, I spoke to three agents before putting on the market and checked various online sites too but buyers seem to be spooked now.

Other properties in the area have started dropping prices so I think we'll have to do the same.

Estate agents all give similar prices, because they are competing with each other for your business, not because they are giving you an honest picture ot the market. They will be aware of what prices other agents are putting forward to sellers of similar houses, and they feel they need to stick to those, or else lose listings.

PasturesNew

Faith1960 wrote: »

... had two offers end of that first week, one of which we accepted in principle as they hadn't sold their house. By end of August they still hadn't found a buyer ...

Your agent should never have allowed you to accept that offer... nor for it to have gone on so long.

Those people were not proceedable buyers.... you were misled.

It's a harsh world, but you should've been advised to "Say no nicely, thank them for their interest but you can't accept an offer from somebody not in a position to proceed".

Buying/selling is a black/white world of emotionless business decision making. Agent needs a kick up the 4rse. He's lost you some of the best buying/selling months of the year.

PasturesNew

Diocletian_II wrote: »

I read that average selling prices at the Land Registry are 25% lower than average Rightmove asking prices.

That seems an unlikely figure, there must be a skewing somewhere....

At £625k prices are all over the place as nobody knows what things are worth as there are fewer comparisons to make and each one's so very different to anything else in the bracket, it's all a guessing game. The trouble is, once an agent's suggested a price to a seller, the seller then believes the guff the salesman glibly trotted out when he was trying to get a signature on the sales documentation.

Down in my price bracket, £260-300k, selling prices are being achieved in about 20% of cases, £5-10k off dominates the market place and £15-25k off has occasionally been the case for unusual properties where the buyer clearly has an agenda (e.g. rip it all out/double the size, or split the land and put a new build in the garden).

Of the 2,600 properties I've "eyed up online" as they're in the right postcode/price range, I've only seen three with drops of £40-50k and they've all actually been well outside my price range and then just dipped into the radar. e.g. where I want to spend £300k for "the perfect" one, they've gone £360k down to £310k (but still need work doing). I can only go top of budget for "the perfect...." or as close as I'll ever get to perfect for where it is/how much. £300k for "it'd be perfect if only the roof didn't leak and if only it wasn't damp and with a 1960s kitchen/bathroom and decor" won't cut it as I have £0 spare cash whatsoever.

Flutterby1000

An update to say, after a week of nothing, we decided to drop the price ans have got two viewings.

Interesting to see the papers reporting first Sept drop in prices since 2010 as well.

Time will tell I guess.

RelievedSheff

Flutterby1000 wrote: »

An update to say, after a week of nothing, we decided to drop the price ans have got two viewings.

Interesting to see the papers reporting first Sept drop in prices since 2010 as well.

Time will tell I guess.

You can blame the newspapers for your current situation with your house!

They sensationalise every little thing.

If you delve deeper into the article you find that it is London and the South East that have had a very minor price decrease. Other areas such as the North West and North East have had house price gains in the region of 3.5%.

Flutterby1000

You can blame the newspapers for your current situation with your house!

They sensationalise every little thing.

If you delve deeper into the article you find that it is London and the South East that have had a very minor price decrease. Other areas such as the North West and North East have had house price gains in the region of 3.5%.

Well no, because the viewings dropped off two weeks ago, the news about Sept house prices only came out today (and however minor the decrease, it's the biggest since 2010). What happened two weeks ago? Boris trying to pushing through No Deal.

And I live in London. Dropping the house price had helped but as I said, time will tell.

PasturesNew

Flutterby1000 wrote: »

An update to say, after a week of nothing, we decided to drop the price ans have got two viewings.

Interesting to see the papers reporting first Sept drop in prices since 2010 as well.

Time will tell I guess.

Well done for making a decision. It does "hurt" to drop it as buyers are stuck on what the agent told them when he was first in the house to sign it up.

I've .... only just exchanged, even that was a tortuous time of about a month from when I was told mortgages in the chain had been approved!

As you say, only time will tell.

Good luck. It's hell

Crashy_Time

Flutterby1000 wrote: »

Thank you. The thing is others in the area discounted this week so ours is starting to look overpriced already. But the UK already held back from Brexit in April so there is a chance that we discount now and can't get back up to the same price if the Govt delay Brexit again. I think we'll hold off until after the weekend, not that things will particularly clear by then!

You are making a mistake thinking that house prices track Brexit like an index tracker fund might track a market, property is in a bubble and is due to correct anyway, Brexit is a sideshow, the bigger global picture is screaming Recession and property bubbles are popping all over the place, plus I believe that the legal position now is that any legal block on No Deal, assuming that the government don`t get the courts to prove that that law is unlawful, only lasts until the end of any new extension (Unlikely to happen if you believe the noises coming from the government) and that would probably be end of January. Best to just accept that we have to leave the EU if our political system is going to survive and price the house to get viewings and eventually sell.

Crashy_Time

RelievedSheff wrote: »

You can blame the newspapers for your current situation with your house!

They sensationalise every little thing.

If you delve deeper into the article you find that it is London and the South East that have had a very minor price decrease. Other areas such as the North West and North East have had house price gains in the region of 3.5%.

How did transactions do?

Flutterby1000

You are making a mistake thinking that house prices track Brexit like an index tracker fund might track a market, property is in a bubble and is due to correct anyway, Brexit is a sideshow, the bigger global picture is screaming Recession and property bubbles are popping all over the place, plus I believe that the legal position now is that any legal block on No Deal, assuming that the government don`t get the courts to prove that that law is unlawful, only lasts until the end of any new extension (Unlikely to happen if you believe the noises coming from the government) and that would probably be end of January. Best to just accept that we have to leave the EU if our political system is going to survive and price the house to get viewings and eventually sell.

Articles out today about house price primarily caused by 'political uncertainty'. As you'll see though, I responded up thread to say I'd lowered the price in any case.