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Honest advice re housing market
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treecol
Posts: 332 Forumite

Hope I've put this thread in the right place?
I'd really appreciate some honest advice/opinions please. We'd like to downsize to a smaller property - don't have to but would like to. Our house has been on the market for around 4 months in the £600k bracket on rightmove. Our agent advised us to drop £25k last month as we'd only had 2 viewings in the 1st 2 week on.
Another member of staff told us today the market is very price sensitive and we'd have to drop or take a lower offer to sell. Also told us property is selling well except ours. I suspect as they know we don't have to sell that they may just want us to take a silly amount for the house so they get some commission rather than us take the house off the market &- they get zero.
Is the house market slow, as other people have told us or is our agent correct? Should we take it off and wait til Brexit happens, if ever or leave it on?
Don't trust our agent to give an unbiased view but know you guys can!
I'd really appreciate some honest advice/opinions please. We'd like to downsize to a smaller property - don't have to but would like to. Our house has been on the market for around 4 months in the £600k bracket on rightmove. Our agent advised us to drop £25k last month as we'd only had 2 viewings in the 1st 2 week on.
Another member of staff told us today the market is very price sensitive and we'd have to drop or take a lower offer to sell. Also told us property is selling well except ours. I suspect as they know we don't have to sell that they may just want us to take a silly amount for the house so they get some commission rather than us take the house off the market &- they get zero.
Is the house market slow, as other people have told us or is our agent correct? Should we take it off and wait til Brexit happens, if ever or leave it on?
Don't trust our agent to give an unbiased view but know you guys can!
1
Comments
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It is very slow. Some fly off the shelf, at the right price, within the month. Others are going on/off the market at an assortment of dropped prices, over several months.
You're probably selling to people trying to sell theirs too, at, say, £375-450k - and they're not selling either
You either drop the price, or sit it out. Your choice.
The market though isn't one big lump of right answers. Every house, every street, every town, every area is different. But one thing's for sure, yours didn't fly off the shelf in the first month.
£25k drops are, too, mostly what I've seen in the £330-360k price range. A £25k drop at £600k is a drop in the ocean that's probably not of interest to buyers watching.
For the record, I'm selling too. Mine sat, unsold, for 8 months before somebody was in a position to buy it.... at a fraction of the cost of yours. I had to wait until one of the many people that liked it had sold theirs. Mine didn't fly off the shelf in the first month because viewers of mine all had something to sell.... that wasn't. My "first price to completed price" differ by about £20k, on a house selling at 40% of your price.
I am looking to buy .... and I will know when "the one" comes on the market - and, for that buyer, theirs will fly off the shelf as I'll see it's at the right price and buy it.1 -
There is insufficient information in your question to give much advice.
Would need to now area you live in and comparable sales to give advice re price. Would also need link to listing to advise possible reasons for lack of viewings.
Market is very slow at the moment due to political situation and uncertainty but as you are aware there are always buyers after a bargain.
Did you obtain three EA valuations and how did you choose who to market your property?
Personally I would post link to property and let readers critique. Take property off the market, address any issues raised and sit tight until current situation resolved.0 -
The market varies significantly by area and price range. I would say in many areas it is slow and more a buyer's market than a seller's one. So if you want to sell you are going to have to find the price that will attract viewers. Currently it appears to be too high, otherwise you would be getting viewings.
The estate agents will tell you not to drop price early, and they will tell you there is plenty selling even when yours isn't. Ours told us both those things. Yes, there was plenty selling but at the low end of the market.
We dropped the price significantly from the initial valuation to get a sale. We knew the valuation was very optimistic and we were happy to try at that level but we were realistic because we wanted to sell.
If you are in no hurry to sell, just hang on and hope you get lucky. You might find the buyer that really wants your house. But our experience was that to sell you have to be prepared to price to the market.
FYI we had 14 viewings in the first two weeks and 30 in total. Only got two offers though. Ours was in a higher price bracket than yours (700 to 800K range).0 -
It will depend where it is and which part of the market it is in. If it is one of the most expensive houses in the area it might take you a couple of years to sell it.0
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Ok here it is...nervously waiting for opinions!0
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Ok here it is...nervously waiting for opinions!
This is just a couple of miles outside of my maximum searching boundary .... so pleased to poke a stick around a big posh gaff instead of looking at my usual damp dives
Back in a bit.
1/ I can't believe anything could be so pricey so close to West Moors.... I'd not be keen to be that close to that hole. OK, it's a few miles, but I'd like to see a gun turret in their direction
2/ Some people will wonder if it's under the flight path.
3/ There's a loose/stray child on a bike on the pavement staring back at the Google car on streetview.... that always loses a house 1-2 points as I start to wonder if that's normal/expected/noisy. Although it's 10 years since Google went down that road, so that kid's probably married by now
4/ The en-suite's too large, for no particular reason.
5/ Generally it has a peculiar layout/use of space that I can't quite put my finger on. For me, personally, it's just not "flowing".
6/ At that price I'd expect a bit of "home envy" to pour out from me ... but it's not happening.
7/ The most expensive house to ever sell in that road was £515k last year, which, although dated and still a bit oddly shaped, does have a more "normal" flow about it.
8/ Two bent loungers sitting on a gravel bed in a bleak garden aren't selling the lifestyle to me
9/ I'm not a big fan of kitchens at all... but yours seems a bit like a tunnel, with basic fittings.
I think, in short, people "expect" a bit more "wow", or something.
I just didn't get the feeling that if I had a ton of money to chuck at a house that I could re-jig that one into anything sensible without a major building project needing to be kicked off.
I think something of a more traditional layout would get more interested viewers, just because it's "more normal".
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-73547296.html0 -
I can't make anything out of picture 5 it looks like waiting space for a dentist or doctor's surgery or something. I have no idea what that is supposed to be.0
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I can't make anything out of picture 5 it looks like waiting space for a dentist or doctor's surgery or something. I have no idea what that is supposed to be.
I believe it started life outside - and it was decided to "fill in the gap"... but then it's just become dead space.
It'd be a little better if it'd had a door through to the sitting room and maybe filled with books and called a library, or a study ... but, as it is, it kind of "grates" doesn't it. Or, with a steel and more money, just join the sitting room to that bit. But the rest of the house still isn't working.
I think it probably needs the kitchen/study swapping over and all opened up, so it's all one bigger space, with the sitting room on the south side, leading out to the sunny garden.
All time/hassle/money for a potential buyer.0 -
PasturesNew wrote: »I believe it started life outside - and it was decided to "fill in the gap"... but then it's just become dead space.
It'd be a little better if it'd had a door through to the sitting room and maybe filled with books and called a library, or a study ... but, as it is, it kind of "grates" doesn't it. Or, with a steel and more money, just join the sitting room to that bit. But the rest of the house still isn't working.
I think it probably needs the kitchen/study swapping over and all opened up, so it's all one bigger space, with the sitting room on the south side, leading out to the sunny garden.
All time/hassle/money for a potential buyer.
It is totally weird it looks as if it has been extended bit by bit without any thought to an overall design. Apart from the "waiting room" there is the problem of the untility room. All the houses I know that have a utility room and have a washing machine in them are next the back door or the room has the back door. In this house you have to trail all the way through the kitchen to get from the utility room to the back door. It would be more convenient to not use the utility room at all for anything except as a cupboard.
It is also odd in the fact that it has all these rooms but only 3 small bedrooms. The 3 small bedrooms may be the reason why it is difficult to sell. It is basically a 3 bed bungalow with a lot of rooms that you can't use for anything tacked on without any design.0 -
It is totally weird it looks as if it has been extended bit by bit without any thought to an overall design. Apart from the "waiting room" there is the problem of the untility room. All the houses I know that have a utility room and have a washing machine in them are next the back door or the room has the back door. In this house you have to trail all the way through the kitchen to get from the utility room to the back door. It would be more convenient to not use the utility room at all for anything except as a cupboard.
It is also odd in the fact that it has all these rooms but only 3 small bedrooms. The 3 small bedrooms may be the reason why it is difficult to sell. It is basically a 3 bed bungalow with a lot of rooms that you can't use for anything tacked on without any design.
Yes, no photo of it either... I'd wonder if a door could be swapped with the window there. Although, if completely redesigning, I might make it a bit bigger to square off that end of what's currently the kitchen, but would become the sitting room ... and chuck in a door. Although that's not ideal either as if you drive up to the garage, get out with all your shopping that you want to stick into the utility room you have to walk across the living room to do that. So that's actually another layout conundrum to solve.0
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