Are houses selling?
Discussion
In my little home counties neck of the woods, yes... if they are reasonably presented and (more importantly) priced sensibly.
The problem seems to be that a lot of the people selling in that area are fantasists - asking for OIEO £400k for small '60s end terraces and ugly neo-Georgian things that even at the absolute peak might have only made mid-to-high 300s if they were in good condition with contemporary decor... which most of these aren't.
The other thing that's unusually slow is the TV property show fodder. Stuff that's in "gran's inheritance" condition with 30-year-old carpets, G-Plan sideboards and polystyrene ceiling tiles, that sort of thing - it just isn't moving. I don't know whether that's people not feeling confident in taking on a major refurbishment project when they could lose their job in the middle of it, or whether it's just that prices have reached the point where the prospect of a complete rewire, redecorate and replace the central heating effort takes too much cash out of the deposit of a prospective buyer (and the people who could afford it just aren't interested in a dilapidated prewar bungalow).
Outside of those, though, the sheer lack of supply means that anything with a sensible price is gone within a week or two of coming on the market, especially the entry level properties and second-stepper small family homes.
The problem seems to be that a lot of the people selling in that area are fantasists - asking for OIEO £400k for small '60s end terraces and ugly neo-Georgian things that even at the absolute peak might have only made mid-to-high 300s if they were in good condition with contemporary decor... which most of these aren't.
The other thing that's unusually slow is the TV property show fodder. Stuff that's in "gran's inheritance" condition with 30-year-old carpets, G-Plan sideboards and polystyrene ceiling tiles, that sort of thing - it just isn't moving. I don't know whether that's people not feeling confident in taking on a major refurbishment project when they could lose their job in the middle of it, or whether it's just that prices have reached the point where the prospect of a complete rewire, redecorate and replace the central heating effort takes too much cash out of the deposit of a prospective buyer (and the people who could afford it just aren't interested in a dilapidated prewar bungalow).
Outside of those, though, the sheer lack of supply means that anything with a sensible price is gone within a week or two of coming on the market, especially the entry level properties and second-stepper small family homes.
paulrockliffe said:
If the seller agreed that the house needed work, they'd have done it in the time they lived there.
Only if they had the money. My mate bought a place in 2003 knowing it was a wreck. It was a terminal stages alcoholic's place in an utterly disgusting state. He moved in and muched it out but that was as far as it went because once he'd done this he was skint. For the next 10 years he was "going to" but it had to deteriorate to a point where it was virtually uninhabitable before he was able to/forced to come up with the money.
The in-laws have their house on the market too, retiring to a village, but again they've priced it as "finished", but for me, it needs gutting. It has a pink bathroom suite, the kitchen is a good 15-20yrs old, it has the old style tiny skirting boards (painted a cream colour), and every single wall/ceiling is wallpapered, and that's not an exaggeration, literally every single wall is textured wallpaper. So it all needs ripping out and starting again, but they've not priced it as such.
As a result, they're upset about the lack of interest. Trying to find a nice way to tell them its vastly overpriced without upsetting them.
As a result, they're upset about the lack of interest. Trying to find a nice way to tell them its vastly overpriced without upsetting them.
I'm an agent, many houses stay on the market as they are over priced, what usually happens is
Agent 1: In his heart of hearts he thinks its worth £450, he knows that two other agents will be pitching on it and he also knows that most householders will always go with the person who dreams up the biggest valuation. So he goes £475,000
Agent 2: will guess what agent 1 has done and go £485-490,000
Agent 3: will now value it at just under £500,ooo
As the losing agent when you call and ask them do they really think they can get that much, standard answer is "well its worth a go you never know". The problem is the vendor now has £500,000 in their mind, they look at houses on the basis that they will get every penny for their house and manage to knock 5-10% off the house they want to buy.
Everything that is priced right will sell, it may not be fast but within 6 months.
Fixer uppers are priced about the same as ready done, doesn't make much sense. Part of the reason they aren't selling is the sort of young buyer who wants them have already stretched as far as they can to get the house. Cash for doing the house up is real money not mortgage money and most of them don't have £20-50,000 extra cash
Agent 1: In his heart of hearts he thinks its worth £450, he knows that two other agents will be pitching on it and he also knows that most householders will always go with the person who dreams up the biggest valuation. So he goes £475,000
Agent 2: will guess what agent 1 has done and go £485-490,000
Agent 3: will now value it at just under £500,ooo
As the losing agent when you call and ask them do they really think they can get that much, standard answer is "well its worth a go you never know". The problem is the vendor now has £500,000 in their mind, they look at houses on the basis that they will get every penny for their house and manage to knock 5-10% off the house they want to buy.
Everything that is priced right will sell, it may not be fast but within 6 months.
Fixer uppers are priced about the same as ready done, doesn't make much sense. Part of the reason they aren't selling is the sort of young buyer who wants them have already stretched as far as they can to get the house. Cash for doing the house up is real money not mortgage money and most of them don't have £20-50,000 extra cash
From what I see (Essex/Suffolk) stuff that is well priced and standard sells fast. Anything over priced seems to sit on the market for ages and then the sold price via Land Registry is 10%+ less than asking.
Properties in the £500k-£1m range seem to take ages to sell. You don't get always get a whole lot of land around here for that and unless you bought ages ago and have equity, how many normal people can afford a mortgage on ~£1m? But lots of detached houses are worth that in theory. Not sure what will happen in 10-20 years time if current prices remain flat or thereabouts. Their owners will be dying off / downsizing but who will be able to trade up if not supported but a lot of equity growth from rising house prices?
Properties in the £500k-£1m range seem to take ages to sell. You don't get always get a whole lot of land around here for that and unless you bought ages ago and have equity, how many normal people can afford a mortgage on ~£1m? But lots of detached houses are worth that in theory. Not sure what will happen in 10-20 years time if current prices remain flat or thereabouts. Their owners will be dying off / downsizing but who will be able to trade up if not supported but a lot of equity growth from rising house prices?
Rangeroverover said:
I'm an agent, many houses stay on the market as they are over priced, what usually happens is
Agent 1: In his heart of hearts he thinks its worth £450, he knows that two other agents will be pitching on it and he also knows that most householders will always go with the person who dreams up the biggest valuation. So he goes £475,000
Agent 2: will guess what agent 1 has done and go £485-490,000
Agent 3: will now value it at just under £500,ooo
As the losing agent when you call and ask them do they really think they can get that much, standard answer is "well its worth a go you never know". The problem is the vendor now has £500,000 in their mind, they look at houses on the basis that they will get every penny for their house and manage to knock 5-10% off the house they want to buy.
Everything that is priced right will sell, it may not be fast but within 6 months.
Fixer uppers are priced about the same as ready done, doesn't make much sense. Part of the reason they aren't selling is the sort of young buyer who wants them have already stretched as far as they can to get the house. Cash for doing the house up is real money not mortgage money and most of them don't have £20-50,000 extra cash
Thanks for that. Our house is priced at £40k below the estate agents valuation as initially we were in a hurry to sell. It is also marketed at £70k more than we paid for it in 2008! We have completely done it up inside and out including a new slate roof, bathrooms & kitchen, boiler, radiators, carpets etc. I would expect to get maybe 5% lower than the £400k I am asking for it but any less than that and I just wouldn't sell as I would be making a loss...Agent 1: In his heart of hearts he thinks its worth £450, he knows that two other agents will be pitching on it and he also knows that most householders will always go with the person who dreams up the biggest valuation. So he goes £475,000
Agent 2: will guess what agent 1 has done and go £485-490,000
Agent 3: will now value it at just under £500,ooo
As the losing agent when you call and ask them do they really think they can get that much, standard answer is "well its worth a go you never know". The problem is the vendor now has £500,000 in their mind, they look at houses on the basis that they will get every penny for their house and manage to knock 5-10% off the house they want to buy.
Everything that is priced right will sell, it may not be fast but within 6 months.
Fixer uppers are priced about the same as ready done, doesn't make much sense. Part of the reason they aren't selling is the sort of young buyer who wants them have already stretched as far as they can to get the house. Cash for doing the house up is real money not mortgage money and most of them don't have £20-50,000 extra cash
Rangeroverover said:
I'm an agent, many houses stay on the market as they are over priced, what usually happens is
Agent 1: In his heart of hearts he thinks its worth £450, he knows that two other agents will be pitching on it and he also knows that most householders will always go with the person who dreams up the biggest valuation. So he goes £475,000
Agent 2: will guess what agent 1 has done and go £485-490,000
Agent 3: will now value it at just under £500,ooo
As the losing agent when you call and ask them do they really think they can get that much, standard answer is "well its worth a go you never know". The problem is the vendor now has £500,000 in their mind, they look at houses on the basis that they will get every penny for their house and manage to knock 5-10% off the house they want to buy.
As a twist on that. the last house I sold I had a couple of agents round.....Agent 1: In his heart of hearts he thinks its worth £450, he knows that two other agents will be pitching on it and he also knows that most householders will always go with the person who dreams up the biggest valuation. So he goes £475,000
Agent 2: will guess what agent 1 has done and go £485-490,000
Agent 3: will now value it at just under £500,ooo
As the losing agent when you call and ask them do they really think they can get that much, standard answer is "well its worth a go you never know". The problem is the vendor now has £500,000 in their mind, they look at houses on the basis that they will get every penny for their house and manage to knock 5-10% off the house they want to buy.
Agent 1: Said 450k, if I insisted he'd advertise for 465k, but I should still expect 450k
Agent 2: Said 500k, reckoned he'd sell it quickly, for nothing less than 490k
The losing agent called me back a week after he'd come round asked why I'd not gone with them. I said they'd not given my confidence in their valuation so I'd gone with the others. They argued quite forcefully that I'd made a mistake. I let them explain, then told them I'd accepted an offer within 1 day of signing paperwork with the other agent for 495k. At that point the conversation ended quite quickly! The house was a run of the mill house on an estate, so shouldn't have been hard to value.
blade7 said:
Saw a newish place on Rightmove nr Spalding on for £350k, history shows it sold for £250k 2 years ago. EA got quite aggressive on the phone when I questioned her valuation. Be interesting to see what happens with it.
We are near M25 Jct 3 (just inside). Next door sold for £285 in February 2015. Ours has just sold for £370k. No material difference in properties except next door is EOT and we are mid terrace. So that doesn't seem unreasonable (depending on the area, I don't know Spalding).OP - We put ours on at the start of July and had 1 viewing about 3 weeks later who made a full asking price offer. Since accepting her offer we had 2 other people request viewings (but we had taken off the market).
wiggy001 said:
blade7 said:
Saw a newish place on Rightmove nr Spalding on for £350k, history shows it sold for £250k 2 years ago. EA got quite aggressive on the phone when I questioned her valuation. Be interesting to see what happens with it.
We are near M25 Jct 3 (just inside). Next door sold for £285 in February 2015. Ours has just sold for £370k. No material difference in properties except next door is EOT and we are mid terrace. So that doesn't seem unreasonable (depending on the area, I don't know Spalding).OP - We put ours on at the start of July and had 1 viewing about 3 weeks later who made a full asking price offer. Since accepting her offer we had 2 other people request viewings (but we had taken off the market).
We put our house in North Yorks on the market in Sept 2015 and had a couple of time wasters and a couple of genuine viewers over the first 6 weeks, then noting until first week in Feb. Three serious buyers. Estate agent (superb) did their job and rated the potential buyers. Full asking received and we completed in May.
In summary, not even a sniff of interest in 4 months and then 3 serious buyers in a week. Be optimistic and always ensure that the house is presented at it's best, even if you thing the buyers are time wasters (one of the time wasters even stayed for lunch, we thought we would never get rid of the fe*kers).
Oh, and we have bought in Cumbria, our personal attempt to keep the housing market moving
In summary, not even a sniff of interest in 4 months and then 3 serious buyers in a week. Be optimistic and always ensure that the house is presented at it's best, even if you thing the buyers are time wasters (one of the time wasters even stayed for lunch, we thought we would never get rid of the fe*kers).
Oh, and we have bought in Cumbria, our personal attempt to keep the housing market moving
yellowtang said:
Does the asking price reflect the the fact that you have council type houses opposite you and a primary school in your back garden?
Assuming the school is OK I'd have thought being in close proximity was a good thing - most primary schools seem to be rammed and after they've taken siblings and various special cases they usually go on straight line distance.I'm putting my old pile on the market soon as we are going to start building a new house next spring, I will move into rented for the last 6 months of the build and initially thought of putting it on the market next March, but wondered whether it would be worth a stab this autumn and take it off before Xmas if not sold, then go again in the spring. Does this sound like a cunning plan?
Sheepshanks said:
yellowtang said:
Does the asking price reflect the the fact that you have council type houses opposite you and a primary school in your back garden?
Assuming the school is OK I'd have thought being in close proximity was a good thing - most primary schools seem to be rammed and after they've taken siblings and various special cases they usually go on straight line distance.Having twice lived right by primary schools myself, I can vouch for the fact that small children en mass can make an almost unbelievable amount of noise at playtime! Didn't bother me however, despite at that time not having kids myself.
The other issue with being next to a primary school is the parents attitude at pickup/drop off time. It's just astonishing how rude and ignorant parents can be! Strangely, my house in Bishops Caundle, Dorset, had the school right behind the house and yet the noise and parking were not really much of an issue. My house in Holt, Wiltshire however, with the school being about 100 yards down the road was very noisy indeed at play times (the children were allowed to scream constantly it seemed) and the parents parking was just unbelievable.
The house in Dorset was only on the market a week and the Wiltshire one took 5 weeks to sell. The schools were an issue for some viewers but most didn't care - they knew about the schools proximity before viewing anyway.
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