Is the current market sucking the joy out of moving?

77588p

Like most people, we were excited to put our house on the market and potentially move home. 

It has been online for 3 weeks. First weekend we had 3 viewings and nothing at all since. We live in a new estate thats about 7 year old. We are currently online for £360k. There are 7 different house types and ours is one of the biggest. There is a property which is about 20% smaller than ours on for 350k and then some about 30% smaller on for 320k. Nothing seems to be moving.

When I look online, no 4 bed properties in my area are moving at all. Only 3 bed semis etc around 220-250 get snapped up. Annoying that all 4 beds in my area show on Rightmove as premium and therefore have multiple photos and ours is the only basic advert. Not sure that makes any difference at all.

Either way its so easy to get bored of the situation and just take your house of the market. We live about 8 minutes walk from a very popular highschool and put the property online now hoping to catch those looking to move to the area ready for September. 

RHemmings

It is possible that all the 4 bed properties on the market in your area are overpriced. Not saying that's definitely the case, but most properties will sell at the correct price for market conditions. Hence, it's possible that your property compares well to other properties on the market at the moment, but it can still be too expensive. 

It can easily happen that the right buyer turns up and you just need to wait. But, it appears that any such buyers will have multiple properties to choose from. 

RelievedSheff

3 weeks is absolutely no time at all to be on the market. Be patient!

FlyMeSomewhere79

It is difficult, we put our nice three bed semi on the market last June, it's in a desirable area especially for good schools and colleges and not overlooked the front or back so we hoped it would sell fairly quick but then the bank of England ruined the market with rate hikes.

We were getting on average about 4 viewings a month but everybody that loved it had a shed more houses to look at because there was so much choice in the market. By October it has died a death and I was resigned to the market possibly not picking up til spring but then the market dud begin to pick up because people actually wanted to buy and get moved in for spring - I took an offer on the house on 31st October and I'm now just trying to get my buyers crap solicitor to get us over the finish line to complete.

We are moving to a bigger, detached house and yea like a lot of more expensive houses it was sat on the market because many people can't afford the expensive mortgage rates. The market has picked up a lot more since Xmas though.

p00hsticks

Has there ever been any 'joy in moving' ? (other than perhaps for first time buyers taking their first step on the ladder) 

For me I've always viewed the whole moving process  as a complete pain, but a necessary evil to get me where I wanted to be....

Ybe

I thought the market was recovering.  Asking prices seem to be up again. 

FlyMeSomewhere79

House prices have nudged up again where I live but there's certain estate agents that have a tendency to try and push boundaries and value things at prices that don't make sense compared to what else is on the market around them.

Ybe

FlyMeSomewhere79 said:

House prices have nudged up again where I live but there's certain estate agents that have a tendency to try and push boundaries and value things at prices that don't make sense compared to what else is on the market around them.

Why do they do that?  Surely if it doesn’t sell, it’s bad for their business too. 

RHemmings

Ybe said:

FlyMeSomewhere79 said:

House prices have nudged up again where I live but there's certain estate agents that have a tendency to try and push boundaries and value things at prices that don't make sense compared to what else is on the market around them.

Why do they do that?  Surely if it doesn’t sell, it’s bad for their business too. 

The first thing an EA needs to achieve is to get the seller to chose them as their agent. Hence, there is sometimes a situation where EAs will value houses high, and then manage expectations of the seller downwards. 

EssexHebridean

I feel your pain OP - it took an age for us to get our flat sold last year - on the market mid January, it had views and several ridiculously low-ball offers before we finally had an offer that was worth negotiating on in Late April. Offer 9at the right level) accepted mid May in the end. 

I can confirm though that having finally got there (all sorts of hassle including a borderline incompetent conveyancer acting for our buyer, and a hysterical Estate Agent on the purchase side) 14 weeks after accepting that offer and having the offer accepted on our purchase, we are now well and truly settled into our new house and the joy is very much evident! 

FlyMeSomewhere79

Yes exactly as RHemmings said - our valuations were a minefield because you also have agents wanting to put it a bit lower than what its obviously worth because a quick sale and quick commission but although we would have liked a quick sale, we had to think about our budget for our onward property. 

We had two agents value it at £165k, one at £159k and one at £185k, we went with the £185k because she did back herself up with other local house prices at the time, we had honest conversations with them about lowering the price when the market took a hit from interest rate hikes and we sold it for £169k.