Fantasists?

newsgroupmonkey_

edgex said:

MobileSaver said:

lookstraightahead said:

mi-key said:

[Deleted User] said:

Property is only worth what someone is willing to pay. Sellers can be as optimistic as they like, but if nobody is willing to pay that much it won't help.

And the flipside is property is worth what someone is willing to sell for. Buyers can be as optimisitic as they like, but if nobody is willing to lower their price enough for them to buy, then it won't help them either

This is true, except like owning a shop a buyer can go to the next one if it's too expensive. It depends really where your mindset is as a buyer. You've nothing to lose really if you keep a level head.

All well and good in theory but back in the real world that's not how it actually works; the problem is that there aren't enough suitable houses in the locations that people want them.

Even on this forum (which is a small fragment of the entire UK house-buying public) we get posts practically every day from people who are struggling to find their next home.

Here's an example from yesterday from a poster who has looked at 34 houses and none are suitable. In the same thread another poster has looked at 43 flats and still not found their next home...

When houses are already in short supply if you then add in your own special criteria of, for example, refusing to pay more than 10% under asking then you do have something to lose because the likelihood is that you won't be moving into a new home any time soon.

Quote from that poster; "We want to downsize...Not one of them comes close to the house we currently have. Nowhere near!" Of course they won't! They're going to be smaller, so are less likely to have downstairs bathrooms, en-suites, big garden etc! That doesn't mean that the houses for sale in their area don't have daft asking prices though. As the OP in that thread has pointed out; "For example, we quite liked one, but it is priced at 25% more psf than ours, is in a worse position, has nowhere to park the car, has a smallish garden which is heavily shaded by the neighbours' trees and is noisy, a lot of the floor area is on the 3rd floor, which is not where we need it, it's listed … The list of cons goes on. " Now we can't see the properties to compare, but a 25% difference in price/size is considerable.

Price per square foot is a daft way of trying to compare anything.

It's like saying that a car is worth more because it's bigger. Of course it's not. Plenty of examples of very cheap estate cars and very expensive tiny sports cars.

Big houses have a smaller market. That means less competition.

Small houses have a huge market. You're up against FTBers, those moving out of flats and those downsizing.

lookstraightahead

newsgroupmonkey_ said:

edgex said:

MobileSaver said:

lookstraightahead said:

mi-key said:

[Deleted User] said:

Property is only worth what someone is willing to pay. Sellers can be as optimistic as they like, but if nobody is willing to pay that much it won't help.

And the flipside is property is worth what someone is willing to sell for. Buyers can be as optimisitic as they like, but if nobody is willing to lower their price enough for them to buy, then it won't help them either

This is true, except like owning a shop a buyer can go to the next one if it's too expensive. It depends really where your mindset is as a buyer. You've nothing to lose really if you keep a level head.

All well and good in theory but back in the real world that's not how it actually works; the problem is that there aren't enough suitable houses in the locations that people want them.

Even on this forum (which is a small fragment of the entire UK house-buying public) we get posts practically every day from people who are struggling to find their next home.

Here's an example from yesterday from a poster who has looked at 34 houses and none are suitable. In the same thread another poster has looked at 43 flats and still not found their next home...

When houses are already in short supply if you then add in your own special criteria of, for example, refusing to pay more than 10% under asking then you do have something to lose because the likelihood is that you won't be moving into a new home any time soon.

Quote from that poster; "We want to downsize...Not one of them comes close to the house we currently have. Nowhere near!" Of course they won't! They're going to be smaller, so are less likely to have downstairs bathrooms, en-suites, big garden etc! That doesn't mean that the houses for sale in their area don't have daft asking prices though. As the OP in that thread has pointed out; "For example, we quite liked one, but it is priced at 25% more psf than ours, is in a worse position, has nowhere to park the car, has a smallish garden which is heavily shaded by the neighbours' trees and is noisy, a lot of the floor area is on the 3rd floor, which is not where we need it, it's listed … The list of cons goes on. " Now we can't see the properties to compare, but a 25% difference in price/size is considerable.

Price per square foot is a daft way of trying to compare anything.

It's like saying that a car is worth more because it's bigger. Of course it's not. Plenty of examples of very cheap estate cars and very expensive tiny sports cars.

Big houses have a smaller market. That means less competition.

Small houses have a huge market. You're up against FTBers, those moving out of flats and those downsizing.

I think it's one way, among others. 

The best example I find is new houses where they sell them as 5-bed yet the floor space is tiny. Or as is my case, where my 3-bed cottage is big in comparison to other 3 or 4 bed.
also rooms that have been made into one, eg kitchen and dining room, or open plan.
I think you can miss out by filtering number of bedrooms and seeing 4 bed as bigger than 3 etc.

You're using words like big houses and small houses and downsizing, so what are you basing it on?  I get your point (ie better location, market, quality etc) but it's still about size to some degree, if there are comparables.

edgex

newsgroupmonkey_ said:

edgex said:

MobileSaver said:

lookstraightahead said:

mi-key said:

[Deleted User] said:

Property is only worth what someone is willing to pay. Sellers can be as optimistic as they like, but if nobody is willing to pay that much it won't help.

And the flipside is property is worth what someone is willing to sell for. Buyers can be as optimisitic as they like, but if nobody is willing to lower their price enough for them to buy, then it won't help them either

This is true, except like owning a shop a buyer can go to the next one if it's too expensive. It depends really where your mindset is as a buyer. You've nothing to lose really if you keep a level head.

All well and good in theory but back in the real world that's not how it actually works; the problem is that there aren't enough suitable houses in the locations that people want them.

Even on this forum (which is a small fragment of the entire UK house-buying public) we get posts practically every day from people who are struggling to find their next home.

Here's an example from yesterday from a poster who has looked at 34 houses and none are suitable. In the same thread another poster has looked at 43 flats and still not found their next home...

When houses are already in short supply if you then add in your own special criteria of, for example, refusing to pay more than 10% under asking then you do have something to lose because the likelihood is that you won't be moving into a new home any time soon.

Quote from that poster; "We want to downsize...Not one of them comes close to the house we currently have. Nowhere near!" Of course they won't! They're going to be smaller, so are less likely to have downstairs bathrooms, en-suites, big garden etc! That doesn't mean that the houses for sale in their area don't have daft asking prices though. As the OP in that thread has pointed out; "For example, we quite liked one, but it is priced at 25% more psf than ours, is in a worse position, has nowhere to park the car, has a smallish garden which is heavily shaded by the neighbours' trees and is noisy, a lot of the floor area is on the 3rd floor, which is not where we need it, it's listed … The list of cons goes on. " Now we can't see the properties to compare, but a 25% difference in price/size is considerable.

Price per square foot is a daft way of trying to compare anything.

It's like saying that a car is worth more because it's bigger. Of course it's not. Plenty of examples of very cheap estate cars and very expensive tiny sports cars.

Big houses have a smaller market. That means less competition.

Small houses have a huge market. You're up against FTBers, those moving out of flats and those downsizing.

Price per square foot is a starting point.

It's how commercial property is done, its how the US & other countries do it.
There's even a standard for property sizes in the UK, so why not base valuations on size?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technical-housing-standards-nationally-described-space-standard

mi-key

Price per square foot is a starting point.

It's how commercial property is done, its how the US & other countries do it.
There's even a standard for property sizes in the UK, so why not base valuations on size?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technical-housing-standards-nationally-described-space-standard

Commercial property is completely different as generally you are looking at one large space with possibly an office / bathroom off it. Warehouses and shops don't generally tend to have multiple rooms.

It also doesn't really work for houses as it totally depends how the house is laid out as to how much of that space is usable, or in rooms you want it to be. There is no point having a huge bathroom and tiny bedroom in a 1 bed flat

edgex

edgex said:

I can give an example of where the seller is being completely unrealistic;

1bed flat, asking for offers over £120k, been on 6 months.
A 2bed flat in the same building, everything the same except a second bedroom, sold last May for £95k.
They're asking for more than the 2bed sold for 13 years ago when new!

Update on this ^

Been in touch with the agent, & they've said

"they won’t look to accept anything as low as £95,000 due to them needing to also sell for a specific figure in order to buy onwards.

The vendor purchased the property for the same figure as stated in 2019, therefore are expecting to accept higher offers than £95,000."

The highest price achieved as a resale was £103k in Dec 2020 for a 2bed. That was £9k less than it sold for as a new build a decade prior.

I don't think any property in the development has sold for much more than the new build price.

This one sold for £93260 new.

So the vendor is now stuck in a property they want to move out of, because they've tied their expected sale price to what they want to buy.

The property isn't selling, its been on for 6 months, & a mortgage lender isn't going to value it at £120k, so it's not the market value. It's the highest asking price in the postcode area for a 1bed flat.

They're fantasists & the agents are enabling them.

lookstraightahead

mi-key said:

Price per square foot is a starting point.

It's how commercial property is done, its how the US & other countries do it.
There's even a standard for property sizes in the UK, so why not base valuations on size?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technical-housing-standards-nationally-described-space-standard

Commercial property is completely different as generally you are looking at one large space with possibly an office / bathroom off it. Warehouses and shops don't generally tend to have multiple rooms.

It also doesn't really work for houses as it totally depends how the house is laid out as to how much of that space is usable, or in rooms you want it to be. There is no point having a huge bathroom and tiny bedroom in a 1 bed flat

Equally, basing a house search on bedrooms can be misleading. 

I think what's being said is that you can often compare two houses with the same number of bedrooms and one is much bigger than the other. 

My house has 3 beds, one huge bathroom (which we are currently changing) and a massive open plan downstairs. You could easily stick more walls up - in fact it could easily be a 4 bed, 3 bath, lounge, kitchen, utility, dining room. It's actually the floor space I noticed which led me to viewing it.

eidand

lookstraightahead said:

mi-key said:

Price per square foot is a starting point.

It's how commercial property is done, its how the US & other countries do it.
There's even a standard for property sizes in the UK, so why not base valuations on size?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technical-housing-standards-nationally-described-space-standard

Commercial property is completely different as generally you are looking at one large space with possibly an office / bathroom off it. Warehouses and shops don't generally tend to have multiple rooms.

It also doesn't really work for houses as it totally depends how the house is laid out as to how much of that space is usable, or in rooms you want it to be. There is no point having a huge bathroom and tiny bedroom in a 1 bed flat

Equally, basing a house search on bedrooms can be misleading. 

I think what's being said is that you can often compare two houses with the same number of bedrooms and one is much bigger than the other. 

My house has 3 beds, one huge bathroom (which we are currently changing) and a massive open plan downstairs. You could easily stick more walls up - in fact it could easily be a 4 bed, 3 bath, lounge, kitchen, utility, dining room. It's actually the floor space I noticed which led me to viewing it.

correct, it is very misleading., I was looking for a 4 bedroom house for my family and after viewing 30-40 I gave up. I ended up buying a 3 bed bungalow which was much bigger than all the 4 bed I've seen, has big bedrooms unlike the 4 bedroom houses and a big kitchen which none of the 4 bed houses had.

The number of bedrooms means nothing as opposed to the size of them. a little shoe box does not count as a bedroom in my book.

Silvertabby

Other factors do come into play, though.  Our estate (oop north, but relatively wealthy market town) is between 25 and 30 years old, so established rather than new build, but still modern (and well built) enough not to need major renovations.

This isn't meant to sound snobby, but the fact is that approval for the second/final stage was rubber stamped just a few months before the ruling that new estates must include a percentage of 'affordable' houses came into being.  This, plus the fact that the roads/green areas have been adopted by the local council, seems to be a major selling point.  Certainly, the lady who bought a friend's house actually said that she had nothing against council houses - she grew up in one - but she wasn't going to pay over a quarter of a million pounds to live next door to one.

That said, 3 larger houses that have been on the market for a month or so seem to be sticking.  Probably a mixture of being overpriced (£400K plus) and the uncertainty re mortgage rates.

Tiglet2

eidand said:

lookstraightahead said:

mi-key said:

Price per square foot is a starting point.

It's how commercial property is done, its how the US & other countries do it.
There's even a standard for property sizes in the UK, so why not base valuations on size?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technical-housing-standards-nationally-described-space-standard

Commercial property is completely different as generally you are looking at one large space with possibly an office / bathroom off it. Warehouses and shops don't generally tend to have multiple rooms.

It also doesn't really work for houses as it totally depends how the house is laid out as to how much of that space is usable, or in rooms you want it to be. There is no point having a huge bathroom and tiny bedroom in a 1 bed flat

Equally, basing a house search on bedrooms can be misleading. 

I think what's being said is that you can often compare two houses with the same number of bedrooms and one is much bigger than the other. 

My house has 3 beds, one huge bathroom (which we are currently changing) and a massive open plan downstairs. You could easily stick more walls up - in fact it could easily be a 4 bed, 3 bath, lounge, kitchen, utility, dining room. It's actually the floor space I noticed which led me to viewing it.

correct, it is very misleading., I was looking for a 4 bedroom house for my family and after viewing 30-40 I gave up. I ended up buying a 3 bed bungalow which was much bigger than all the 4 bed I've seen, has big bedrooms unlike the 4 bedroom houses and a big kitchen which none of the 4 bed houses had.

The number of bedrooms means nothing as opposed to the size of them. a little shoe box does not count as a bedroom in my book.

I did exactly the same and totally agree with you!  This is where sometimes you need to actually view the property to get a sense of the space rather than looking at rightmove adverts.