Agent or market problem?

mi-key

LE_Bore said:

mi-key said:

LE_Bore said:

Thank you mi-key. The other thing I should have mentioned is that if we did reduce the price, how do we know there are any more  buyers at the lower price bracket when the market appears to be dead? We don't...

Very true. To sell a house you only need one person to come along who likes it and can afford it. Sometimes this can happen the day you list it, sometimes it can take a bit longer. The market itself isn't really dead, plenty of places are still selling, it's just nothing much does over the winter.

Interest rate changes arent going to make much impact now ( unless they reduce them ! ) as the mortgage lenders have already priced in increases into their rates, so mortgages aren't really going to get any more expensive than they are now,

Thank you. It is on Rightmove. Maybe I will hang on until Easter to see if there's any action. Let's hope mortgage rates don't go any higher -- good to be optimistic!!!

Mortgage rates may go up a bit, but all the predictions are that BoE interest rates aren't going to go up that much more, so any increases in the mortgage rates will be pretty small ( if at all ). At least when things are more settled its easier for people to work out their affordability

LHW99

Check the pictures and picture order on Rightmove. You may be able to improve things by replacing one or two with your own photos (newly taken) that show the best views of the property itself. Our agent put up the views from the property as the first pictures, which made people think they were getting something with 100 acre fields (and were then disappointed when they looked into it).

MikeJXE

There is nothing to gain by reducing the asking price at this slowest  time of year 

End of February and March is the start of the peak time and if the market doesn't start to move for you then you may have to reconsider one or the other.

You can't change the market, only the agent and if you do your homework that should have been done before you chose an agent perhaps there are better ones at the job. 

Personally as I have bought and sold 10 times in my life I would look at keeping the same price for a period at least and changing the agent if there are good comparisons in the same area with similar prices sold 

LE_Bore

LHW99 said:

Check the pictures and picture order on Rightmove. You may be able to improve things by replacing one or two with your own photos (newly taken) that show the best views of the property itself. Our agent put up the views from the property as the first pictures, which made people think they were getting something with 100 acre fields (and were then disappointed when they looked into it).

Hadn't really occurred to me that the picture order would be so important, so thank you for that.

LE_Bore

MikeJXE said:

There is nothing to gain by reducing the asking price at this slowest  time of year 

End of February and March is the start of the peak time and if the market doesn't start to move for you then you may have to reconsider one or the other.

You can't change the market, only the agent and if you do your homework that should have been done before you chose an agent perhaps there are better ones at the job. 

Personally as I have bought and sold 10 times in my life I would look at keeping the same price for a period at least and changing the agent if there are good comparisons in the same area with similar prices sold 

Thank you Mike. That's level-headed analysis of the situation, appreciate it. We did select the agent who appeared to have sold the most locally according to an evaluation website. But we also liked the way they seemed to talk sense. Maybe we could have gone for someone more, I dunno, pushy. I think you are right. We should hold fire for a bit until the market improves. 

jonnydeppiwish!

LE_Bore said:

Hi Fellow Forum Folk

We own a modest and characterful house in an area north west of London which has unexpectedly become desirable in the past 10 years. Lucky us. But we are skint. I have chucked in my job because my partner needs a full time carer, so we have decided to get shot of the house and move to a cheap area. We put the house on the market at the end of November, since when... hardly anyone has viewed it. 

We chose an estate agent with a good reputation and priced the house in the middle of the four valuations we received. We were warned by two of the agents that the market was not only dead at this time of year but the state of the economy meant all pricing was uncertain. We live in an area where there are about 15 agents locally, so we are not without a choice. But we hear far more often from the other agents who did not get to place our house on their portfolio than we do from the one we actually employed. They seem to think they can sell it when our agent can't, though exactly how they could find different buyers to other agents in an era where everyone looks on rightmove, I am not sure. 

When we do get to speak to the nice woman at our agent, she says we should drop the price of the house by 50,000. But I see tattier houses nearby priced higher than ours in worse locations. Some even sell! Plus we've only had four people through the door, so there's not a lot of reaction to go on -- all said it presented well but not what they were looking for. I note that our agent doesn't bother with social media, and I worry that they will only sell to locals. There is an artsy area nearby a few miles away which may just get the house a bit more than the locals, I think, but I don't know if our agent will reach them. My question is, should we swap agent, or just hang on? 

Many thanks for reading. 

As everyone else is no doubtedly saying, if it’s not selling, it’s overpriced, regardless of what other properties are up for.

mi-key

jonnydeppiwish! said:

LE_Bore said:

Hi Fellow Forum Folk

We own a modest and characterful house in an area north west of London which has unexpectedly become desirable in the past 10 years. Lucky us. But we are skint. I have chucked in my job because my partner needs a full time carer, so we have decided to get shot of the house and move to a cheap area. We put the house on the market at the end of November, since when... hardly anyone has viewed it. 

We chose an estate agent with a good reputation and priced the house in the middle of the four valuations we received. We were warned by two of the agents that the market was not only dead at this time of year but the state of the economy meant all pricing was uncertain. We live in an area where there are about 15 agents locally, so we are not without a choice. But we hear far more often from the other agents who did not get to place our house on their portfolio than we do from the one we actually employed. They seem to think they can sell it when our agent can't, though exactly how they could find different buyers to other agents in an era where everyone looks on rightmove, I am not sure. 

When we do get to speak to the nice woman at our agent, she says we should drop the price of the house by 50,000. But I see tattier houses nearby priced higher than ours in worse locations. Some even sell! Plus we've only had four people through the door, so there's not a lot of reaction to go on -- all said it presented well but not what they were looking for. I note that our agent doesn't bother with social media, and I worry that they will only sell to locals. There is an artsy area nearby a few miles away which may just get the house a bit more than the locals, I think, but I don't know if our agent will reach them. My question is, should we swap agent, or just hang on? 

Many thanks for reading. 

As everyone else is no doubtedly saying, if it’s not selling, it’s overpriced, regardless of what other properties are up for.

Actually nobody was saying that... It's not as simple as saying 'if it’s not selling, it’s overpriced' 

YoungBlueEyes

Would it be possible to take it off the market and go on again in a few weeks? Then it'll appear fresh to the market for Spring and go to the top of RM listings.

UnderOffer

Is it priced on a round number and uses the RM brackets i.e £500k, £550k, £600k, etc., if it’s something like £410k you may find it is missing from Rightmove listings where buyers enter a maximum amount i.e. £400k max and yours then sits outside of that bracket at £410 and not shown to prospective buyers? 

LE_Bore

UnderOffer said:

Is it priced on a round number and uses the RM brackets i.e £500k, £550k, £600k, etc., 

It's priced below a round number; if someone is searching in that bracket then they will see it. That's one reason why I think those searching Rightmove at the higher price will be the same ones who are searching for it 50,000 less, as our agent has suggested, so there's no benefit in terms of drawing in buyers at a lower RM price bracket. We don't have a scooby if there are more people looking at the lower price than there are at the higher one and there is no way of knowing. I'd imagine that all estate agents in an area have the same small clientele at the moment and all house buyers are can see everything on the market because its more or less all online already, or about to go online.