Trying to sell our house for 7 months

What is happening in areas where you live regarding asking price and potential buyers?

We live in E. Northants.  We have a 3 bedroom detached built within the last 10 yrs. There are 12 homes in the estate for sale.  We have lowered and lowered the asking price (ours is the cheapest of the 12 now) but no takers at all.  The estate agent has said it is bleak out there and he predicts it will just get worse.

Are homes selling in other areas?

hi there Sheri

I'm trying hard to remember if its the land registry site or if there's another similar site which lists addresses and the last time they were sold and for what price. I can't remember how 'up to date' it is either and I forgot to save in favourites the web address when I read it a few months ago!

Houses are selling for asking or close to asking price - however, currently, since the housing markets started wobbling a few months ago, less and less houses are selling close to asking price. Buyers are putting in low offers and some sales are taking place at that lower price. Flats and apartments seem to be doing better - as they're better priced so more buyers who are actually thinking of buying now can go for them - there's much much less demand from buyers in the market right now for houses.

Another aspect is that 'certain' houses in 'certain' areas are selling well still - but of course they 'tend' to be sought after homes and locations and their prices are even more stratospheric for us 'normal' people! - I drove past a development of 5 5 bedroom new homes a couple weeks ago, I 'seem' to remember they all were sold and the board said 'last one remaining' - I was like gosh, someone who obviously can afford the £800,000 these places must be selling at - I'll have to go back and re-check!

A good way to 'monitor' prices is what I do, which is to check every week the property listings in your area. for me, the task is very easy as we have a 'Property News' newspaper delivered for free every week - I'm not sure all areas of the UK are covered by a similar publication - if not, I guess you need to ask all the local estate agents to give you a 'stock list' of all places each week and you can compare that way, when I house disappears from the list - maybe a friendly chat with the agent could reveal it's selling price? (I think that might contravene data protection acts though - I'm not sure)

There's much out there as in what to do with the housing market - it all depends on your own unique scenario, if you 'have' to sell then it may mean accepting a much lower offer than normal (if the market wasn't so wobbly - it might have only been a few thousand less) and currently, buyers are 'trying it on' by offering much lower to silly low offers to see if sellers will bite.  If you don't have to sell then the current advice from many commentators etc is to sit tight and ride out the current wobblyness and see where we go in 6-12 months to the next 2-3-5 years or so.

Also, seeing as you've lowered and lowered, without being rude, did you have your property valued by several different estate agents? there are some sellers who are in dreamland when it comes to pricing their property (not saying you are!) and this was way before the subprime fallout occured! - if that site which shows selling prices is found, maybe looking at selling prices will confirm how well your's is priced.

Good luck !

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

I think that the land registry updates when a property in your area sells, we just did ours and it listed all houses sold up to the date we looked however we had to pay to find out details of how much it sold for, it may be different in other areas.

I live in Cambridge and two women at my work are trying to sell.  One has a three bedroom in a tiny village far out with no land.  They are asking for offers over 300,000. 

It has been on the market for 5 months now, maybe?  They have had no offers. 

Her estate agent keeps saying that the market in our area is NOT suffering.

Yet admits that my co-worker's house is one of the few that gets any viewings and that any offers coming in are "insulting".  So offers of 250,000 when a house is on the market for 300,000. 

Clearly, the market is being affected or these houses would be selling.

http://www.houseprices.co.uk/

Not sure if this is the site Dennis was talking about but this is the site we look at.

Still no luck 

Good luck!

I think a lot of people are being a bit more cautious now and seeing how things go.

Some people paid over-inflated prices and are now finding they can't sell and gain enough profit to trade up and so are having to stay put, and still others are just not able to borrow what they may have been offered even six months ago, so don't have the purchasing power they once had.

Still no sale. People are dropping their house prices by 20 to 30 k here

Coming at it from the potential buyers' perspective... it's just too hard to get a mortgage right now. We've stopped looking because we know we wouldn't be able to finance it now. 

Coming at it from the potential buyers' perspective... it's just too hard to get a mortgage right now. We've stopped looking because we know we wouldn't be able to finance it now. 

Yes, I agree.  People are still asking more than a lot of people can afford/get a mortgage for.

I know it's tough, because maybe they bought at the height of the boom and now need to sell at a certain price in order to pay off their mortgage and buy somewhere else (unless they are downsizing), but hey ho, people can only pay what they can afford to.

And nowadays that's not what it used to be.

 

My MIL house has been for sale for 3 years but she lives in Cumbria and who wants to live where there is no work.

Our home here in the states has been for sale for 2 years this past April. We lowered it by $20,000 and now have it for less than its worth and changed our estate agent 6 times and still no interest. The dang market is so bad here. Trouble for us is we cannot file for our visas until we have a sale as we cannot afford to have a mortgage in the UK and US.

Hang in there, it will sell.

My boyfriend and I are first-time buying trying to get our first house, and we're having to wait because we can't get a mortgage (good credit, small deposit). But in the meantime, we found a house that he's absolutely fallen in love with, and was heartbroken at the idea of someone else getting in there first.

So, we're currently working on a deal with the owners to rent the house for a year while we save up a deposit, at which point we'll have the option to buy the place. It's not a terribly common arrangement, but it's not unheard of either.

And it's to the advantage of both parties -- we get the house we want, they have a guaranteed income for a year at which time they have a buyer already lined up. And since we'll (presumably) buy the place, we have an incentive to keep it in very good condition (and even improve it) while we're there.

Would you consider something like that? It may open some doors for you.
Best of luck!

If a house doesn't sell it's because it's priced too high for the current market conditions.  Simple as that.  Reduce or just take it off the market and wait it out.

If a house doesn't sell it's because it's priced too high for the current market conditions.  Simple as that.  Reduce or just take it off the market and wait it out.

I have lowered and lowered the price to no avail. 

My estate agent claims that all the would be buyers cannot get mortgages.  An estate agent just closed in our town and another will be shortly.  How do you shift a house in these conditions?  Do you have to give it way? 

It's horribly difficult to get a mortgage right now.  A year ago, people who would have been able to get a 110 per cent mortgage or 4.5 x salary are only being offered 3 x salary and 20 per cent deposit required.  In this environment, dropping the price won't help.  Is there any way you can hold on and wait til the economy has perked up a bit before selling?

Vicky