Anyone managing to buy or sell in TOWIE country?

Dogen

Hiya,

My house has been up for sale since mid-January in trendy TOWIE territory -- south-west Essex. But there is no action: scarcely any viewings for the house, no sign of a buzz about any of the properties that appear on Right Move or Zoops. The other houses in a similar price bracket, fairly affordable for the area, aren't under offer ether. 

Has anyone managed to get their house under offer in the area, please? Or at least had viewers queueing to see it!? Is the market totally dead or is my agent not pulling their weight? Would I be better swapping agent to a national agency rather than using the local one I am currently with? The agent reckons it is valued correctly and so do I when I look at the other properties on the mkt,  so why the lack of interest? Just trying to work out what to do.....

Many thank yous for reading this. 

EssexHebridean

I'm not a million miles away (just slightly west of you), currently attempting to sell a 2 bed flat, and there is almost NO movement on flats at all in the area at the moment. We're priced competitively, priced in a way that should provoke dialogue around offers, but at the moment, there are very few viewers out there it seems. Agents generally are saying the same, so this isn't a line we're being fed by the one we're registered with, either! 

I work in a firm of conveyancing Solicitors in outer London and it has been notably quiet for the last little while, and we are seeing far fewer FTBs than we might usually expect as an overall percentage of new instructions too - the general feeling is that they more than most were shaken by the mini-budget fallout and interest rates going up - a lot are seemingly holding out for "interest rates to go back to normal" though - so either they're going to be waiting a long time, or the penny will drop at some stage... 

cjdew

We are mid to north Essex and can see that the market is stagnating. The only fast moving places are those with land, but even then they only seem to ahift if they are £30 - 50k less than they would have been up for October 2022. 

We have other things in flight at the moment so are not on the market now. But we do think that when we go on we maybe in for a shock as opposed to 2020 to 2022. 

I know of a new housing development near us where they were selling for £560k at covid "move to the country" peak and now the final few houses are being "parked" and not built as the last few ready to go ones arent shifting, even at £495k...!!

I think if you really need to sell the only way to do so if you  have had no offers is to lower the price. 

Dogen

EssexHebridean said:

Agents generally are saying the same, so this isn't a line we're being fed by the one we're registered with, either! 

I work in a firm of conveyancing Solicitors in outer London and it has been notably quiet for the last little while, 

Thank you for that fast reply, all the more valuable coming from someone within the property industry too. My mortgage rate when I first bought a flat was 11%!!! And that seemed normal back then...eek.

Dogen

Charjohndew said:

We have other things in flight at the moment so are not on the market now. But we do think that when we go on we maybe in for a shock as opposed to 2020 to 2022. 

I am wondering if there is a market as such now :{

bex2012

Im not far from you (slightly further south), and things are selling, but not without price reductions, and being on the market longer than usual. However there are still many over-optimistic sellers, and I dont think they are grasping that the market is not what it was 18 months ago.

Dogen

Bex, you may well be correct. But my house is priced at 100,000 less than the highest valuation suggested by an EA, and at the price the other three all seemed to agree with, more or less. Maybe it is not just the sellers who are over-optimistic! Another agent who door-knocked looking for my business, reckoned the house wasn't selling because it was undervalued so people might think it wasn't worth looking at... a bit of a strange idea, I think. 

NameUnavailable

A friend is selling at the moment, house went on the market before Xmas with little or no interest. Price was reduced after Xmas and still no interest. They were about to take it off the market when they had a viewing and offer. 

Things generally pick up around this time of year.