what a crazy housing market

lookstraightahead

I think on paper buying is a good thing and you will theoretically make money if you are slow and steady.

however if life throws you a curve ball - divorce, death, redundancy, debt, crash etc then buying could be the most costly thing you've ever done.

I worry for flat owners at the moment.

no doubt at all that buying young (30 years ago) was the worst thing I ever did. Huge chain around my ankles.  Worst parental advice I ever had was to get on the housing market at 22. (Not blaming parents btw). Took me years to get back on track.

Exodi

Flugelhorn said:

true - we don't have to move, so tempted to wait until things more sensible. neighbours are moving, they were on cloud 9 when they sold easily but then frantically dashing around finding a place to offer on themselves, not sure it was what they were looking for but they missed out on a few  BAF 

My neighbours have done this also, I don't really understand it.

Like sure, it's great that you can sell your house for a quintillion pounds, but when you go to buy, all the other houses cost a quintillion pounds also, so what do you gain- it's all relative?

ccbrowning

It is crazy. We had planned to sell before the pandemic, but I changed jobs and are now finally ready, with the home scheduled to go in the market soon. Almost wonder if I should give up, since nothing is coming on to the market in our target area. So far it’s just Rightmove alerts but I don’t even get 1 house per day. Maybe all being snapped up before hitting the site? Regardless it’s going to be silly if we sell and just never find anywhere. 

[Deleted User]

ccbrowning said:

It is crazy. We had planned to sell before the pandemic, but i changes jobs and are now finally ready and are scheduled to go in the market soon. Almost wonder if I should give up, since nothing is coming on to the market in our target area. So far it’s just Rightmove alerts but I don’t even get 1 house per day. Maybe all being snapped up before hitting the site? Regardless it’s going to be silly if we sell and just never find anywhere. 

Even if stuff does come up you will find that within a day or two there are offers over asking price, cash buyers. If you need a mortgage you might as well give up now.

Flugelhorn

ccbrowning said:

It is crazy. We had planned to sell before the pandemic, but I changed jobs and are now finally ready, with the home scheduled to go in the market soon. Almost wonder if I should give up, since nothing is coming on to the market in our target area. So far it’s just Rightmove alerts but I don’t even get 1 house per day. Maybe all being snapped up before hitting the site? Regardless it’s going to be silly if we sell and just never find anywhere. 

have spotted some on onthemarket a couple of days before they hit rightmove but even then there are often back-2-back viewing and BAFO 

ccbrowning

Theoretically this craziness benefits those of us selling, but is the problem that you have to compete with London sellers and others with a lot of cash don’t need to worry about a mortgage? Is the city ‘exodus’ going to continue or will it at least stabilise at some point? Enquiring minds want to know!

lookstraightahead

I'm unsure as to what the real situation is though. All these houses flying off the market yet actual properties sold don't seem to be coming through.
I think sometimes if people say it enough they think it's happening - Estate agents are constantly saying offers are on the table but in my recent purchase everything they said had a lot of interest is still available. Some have sold and fallen through, some are definitely overpriced, and some are just not budging. 

nicknameless

Not everything is flying off the shelf.  It very much depends on the property and location where we are looking.  We have viewed 2 properties that we were interested in during the last 3 weeks.  The first we offered below asking as it is simply overpriced and with no potential to extend or add to it.  Offer rejected by vendors and it is still sitting nearly 3 weeks later on the market.  EA told us they had other viewings lined up (we were first to view) but that has obviously come to nothing.

The other property cheaper and needed work but with potential to extend and other things going for it.  We didn't even get to the point of offering as the EA told us there were 2 cash buyers way above asking already.  We weren't able / willing to compete with that.  Asking price was on the margins of 'value' (got to lol at that term atm) and we wouldn't have gone higher.

On the first property I thought our offer was very fair - we were not lowballing.

newsgroupmonkey_

nicknameless said:

Not everything is flying off the shelf.  It very much depends on the property and location where we are looking.  We have viewed 2 properties that we were interested in during the last 3 weeks.  The first we offered below asking as it is simply overpriced and with no potential to extend or add to it.  Offer rejected by vendors and it is still sitting nearly 3 weeks later on the market.  EA told us they had other viewings lined up (we were first to view) but that has obviously come to nothing.

The other property cheaper and needed work but with potential to extend and other things going for it.  We didn't even get to the point of offering as the EA told us there were 2 cash buyers way above asking already.  We weren't able / willing to compete with that.  Asking price was on the margins of 'value' (got to lol at that term atm) and we wouldn't have gone higher.

On the first property I thought our offer was very fair - we were not lowballing.

When you say overpriced, are you saying that a surveyor won't say it's worth the money, or is it overpriced in your opinion?

The sad state of affairs is that many surveyors actually agree with the crazy pricing, because they have comparables.

Let's be honest, in a normal market, 3 weeks of being on the market is absolutely nothing.

In this market, if you want to hold, out, you'll get your money eventually, someone will be desperate enough.

Newnoel

Certainly I've seen a lot of houses move very quickly in my area. One of the neighbours went up for sale last week and is already under offer at full asking