Property not shifting, advice on next steps

TonyG1977

For context:

I have a 2 Bed city centre flat in a major UK city (not London). There are A LOT of flats going up in this area, although being sold for huge amounts more than I’m trying to get

We’ve been on the market for around 4-5 months and we haven’t had a viewing yet

The agent is the best rated agent in the city centre. They are very responsive when I want to talk about them.

The photos are excellent (my wife’s really on the ball with this stuff and agrees).

They definitely hooked me on a higher price of 220K (yes, I know now).

For comparison (which I didn’t know when we put it live) a flat in the same building sold in July for 165K - it is also 2 bed but clearly not as nice as this flat, it’s smaller and pokier.

Unusually compared to others I’ve seen here, they’ve been advising not to drop the price too quickly (whereas most people I see here are having the opposite problem of EA’s taking on the property and wanting to drop immediately).

Since it wasn’t shifting (and because I pushed) we agreed that we will drop by 10K every three weeks. We did a 15K drop for the last one and we’re now down to 185.

However, they said that things have slowed down across the board in the last few weeks due to anticipation of the budget and they’re keen not to overreact until the budget’s over. (This was before the prebudget statement). 

I’m not in a desperate hurry but I really want to get someone to go for it in January - I really want this off my hands for personal reasons

If we continue with their approach I guess we will go to 175K at some point in December, which feels like around the right place to be if the other one went to 165

The basic question is - I know there are a load of sharks out there, but these guys do seem a lot better than agents I’ve worked with in the past. Their attitude is that they want me not to overreact with dropping the price so that we can get the best deal, this feels like a good plan but I was interested in what others had to say.

Thanks for any advice in advance!

El_Torro

It does seem odd that you haven't had any viewings at all in the last 4 to 5 months. If it was on the market for £220k and it's worth £175k that would help to explain it though. 

I wouldn't drop too far now. This time of year isn't a great time to get viewings and offers, since it's the run up to Christmas. This is true even without a supposedly world ending Budget looming. If you still get no viewings by the end of January I would drop again then. 

Is there something fundamentally wrong with where your flat is? Does it have cladding issues, or a high ground rent and / or service charge for example? Even if it had all these problems I wouldn't expect potential buyers to realise this until after their first viewing though. 

Ms_Chocaholic

I know it's not advisable to post links to your Rightmove link as per MSE forum rules but could you post a couple of pics (not the ones on the listing or from the same angle as the ones on the listing preferably so none of us can do a reverse image search) and we can give a view.

TonyG1977

> I wouldn't drop too far now. This time of year isn't a great time to get viewings and offers, since it's the run up to Christmas. This is true even without a supposedly world ending Budget looming. If you still get no viewings by the end of January I would drop again then. 

Thanks, I will take that advice, this is what they were suggesting too but I just wanted a bit of reassurance. 

> Is there something fundamentally wrong with where your flat is? Does it have cladding issues, or a high ground rent and / or service charge for example? Even if it had all these problems I wouldn't expect potential buyers to realise this until after their first viewing though. 

No to all of these - No cladding, the service charge is around the 1400 per year mark which I don't think is enormous compared to other similar places. 

The location is really close to the city centre (10 mins walk) in an area which is really being done up at the moment, and will become part of the centre before too long. So nothing wrong with the location apart from taht there are a lot of other flats there (all very expensive ones though). 

It may be I just need to hold tight, it sounds like the agents have the right plan. Really appreciate your feedback!

TonyG1977

@Ms_Chocaholic Thanks for your offer. I'm afraid I don't have any pictures other than the ones on the profile. I'm pretty sure it isn't the issue though, they are really nice pictures (and I've had some bad ones in the past).

I will show them to a few of my friends though to see if anyone can spot any issues!