Diesel

Lots of spin and BS and very biased opinions on the housing market at the moment. LOTS!!! So I’m fishing for some more real current experiences via the all-knowing fount of Scoobynet and being truthful and factual!!!

Reports state that the market has slowed down by about 30% which isn’t good news if you are selling a house [which I am]. However should enable a better price when buying [which I am]

Put my house up in Dec and very quickly dropped it by £15k as I always thought it was quite overpriced and the range of valuations by the agents varied by £60k low to high


Then had one offer £15k under the new asking price which I accepted.

Their survey then valued it at £10k under this.

I met them halfway and dropped it another £5k.

PHEW!!!! But then I only had ONE offer in 4 months and they were cash buyers.


So essentially that is £20k under the more realistic asking price post survey and pretty low as a single digit percentage reduction too. Shouldn’t grumble too much I guess.

My experience of making offers to buy aint so good though. I negotiated slowly over 4 weeks to £25k under asking price on a house that needs a new roof but now have to walk away as they are having none of it [its been empty and on the market for 6 months too…]

Any other REAL stories so we can swop notes?

GCollier

We had our house on the market last September through November. Had a fair few viewings but no offers.

After a break for Christmas and the arrival of a new child, put it back on the market a week and a half ago for the same price as last year. Within 4 days we had 2 offers on the table within £5k of the asking price, one from cash buyers.

So far selling hasn't been the problem...it's been finding a quality property in the area we want to live, and we're still looking. A lot of property seems to hang around for ages, but the decent stuff in the right location at the right price seems to sell quickly. We were on our way to visit one property last weekend when the agent told us "sorry, viewing is off, first people to see the place have bought it".

Gary.

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

We put our house in the mid-range of the 9 estimates we had back in February.

It's now June and we've had NO viewings at all.

We've dropped the price £20K since then and still no one looking. It is very disheartening.

Recaro

Though your going to hate me, but this is what i want to hear. I'm a first time buyer and i think the houses prices are stupid at the mo. They need to come down and it sounds like they might.

A friend of the family started selling her house at Xmas for £450K (this is what the estate agents valued it at). 6 months on the market and it is now down to £355K. And still no one seems interested.

But then, another friend of the family put her house on the market at the beginning of the year and it sold within a month. This was valued by the same estate agent.

I have noticed that in the last 2 months house prices seem to either be falling or holding.

My mate and his bird just bought a 2 bed terraced house with garage and own drive for £180K in Yateley. Its very nice, but at the moment I would not be thinking of buying. They bought that today.

Too many people predict a crash. With so many people saying "crash", FTB's are waiting for the prices to drop.

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

We sold 2 yrs ago for a 50% profit over what we bought at 3 yrs previously. The new owners have recently put the house on the market & +10% & not yet sold. We know the estate agent & asked why not & he said "overpriced".



Well, made us feel good anyway...



& TBH, we don't really care that the house that we bought after is/was overpriced as we love it to pieces & what we pay/sacrifice is worth it

Les H

We put our house on the market at Easter. very desirable location etc. Loads of viewings but not one single offer. Dropped it by 10K at the end of last week and straight away we get an offer of the full lower asking price at the weekend. I just hope it sticks

Diesel

Good to hear real stories - seems it all has to be priced less optimistically that's all [as long as ALL play ball ]

Les - that looks like coincidence to me, and you are lucky to get that full asking price mate!

D

OllyK

We went on the market lat Aug, 30 plus viewings through to Dec, finally sold at £5K under original asking price. Bought a house in need of complete rennovation, roof, heating elctrics etc, knocked the price down quite a bit and got a nice Edwardian 3 bed detached with a big garden for £116K, with £50K to spend on sorting out. Been living in it throughout and can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. I still think we paid too much.

Pigshed

Put mine on the market two weeks ago, the estate agents warned that it's been really quet over the last few months. Properties which nomally move really quickly were not moving much, and houses they we're valuing on behalf of builders they were having to value at 10% less than normal to be able to move them on in time.

I wonder how many of the house price problem stories are started by the Govt. They need to create just enough worry so that things don't go crazy, and ideally need to slow things down enough so they can drop interest rates. Just a thought. I know everyone says houses are incredibly expensive, but everytime I look at places anywhere else in the world, there's not much in it. Ok, there are obviously exceptions, but if you look at similarish economies.

Anyway, if it gives anyone any hope, I sold mine last thursday after 5 viewings in less than two weeks, accepted 10k less than asking price, no chain either way.

Dracoro

Err, no. The Bank of England control interest rates, not the government.

EddScott

My buying story is quite a good one (well, I think it is )

I was about to have my license taken off me for drink driving (long story), I just discovered I was going to be a dad, and I lived 20 miles from my workplace. No money as it was all being pumped into keeping my GTIR on the road. My GF had no place to live due to a fight with her landlady and her partner (which led to the DD ban for me) My GF had to quit her job due to having to move villages and she ddin't have a driving license either. So all in all we were in a bit of a bind.

Mother handed me a leaflet about these annington homes - an ex-MOD estate was being revamped and sold on. £99 deposit, 5% paid so all you need was a 95% mortgage and all the fees paid for. 75 houses available on Friday, we went to choose Monday and there was 12 left. Bought a 3 bed semi with garage for £48K. And within 20 mins walk of where I worked.

Had a sofa older than me, a fold out bed and a cooker rescued from someones garden.

June 2005 - house is worth £140K, I've got me scoob, GF is about to get a scoob, little'un is 3 years old and the sun is shining.

Took a while but we got there in the end

Neil Smalley

The pressure on interest rates has changed from upwards, to downwards in recent months. Manufacturing and consumer growth rates are slowing rapidly, so unless a recession is to be avoided then interest rates have to fall. Once they fall, house prices will go up. It's a hobsons choice for the Bank Of England..

Hanslow

Ours (3 bed semi) went on about a month ago. We accepted an offer for the full asking price within a week of it going on We had 4 viewings that week and one arranged for the next (which we cancelled).

Our problem was finding somewhere we were happy with that ticked most of the boxes. We'd been looking on and off for about 2 years and not found anything suitable. Within a week of accepting the offer on ours, we found somewhere we liked, put in full asking price as it'd taken so long to find something, which was accepted and it's all now in the hands of the solicitors

Pigshed

ok ok .. replace "they" with "The Bank of England" .. or Mervyn King - who is appointed by the Govt. (albeit signed off by the queen) .. ergo . "they" ....

(Edit : Really must keep up with events, thought Eddie George was still governor !)

MattW

Mervyn King actually.

He took over from George in 2003

R1916v

I'm trying to be a ftb but just not happening at the moment. It's not even mortgage repayments that are holding it all up as we can afford them, it's just getting the deposit together. Still, got company share options coming though soon where I've doubled my money

For those having problems selling my main advice is for gods sake find a decent agent. People wonder why their houses are on for months with no interest then when they drop the price they get offers!

My folks own a small agency down here in Devon and they are always busy, many nice houses for sale etc.

They get a lot of repeat business and loads from word of mouth because, and I'm bias , they are bloody good at what they do.

There's no competition worth mentioning in the main town they work from, so if anyone's looking to sell down here

carl

Hmm. Wikipedia says the makeup of the Bank of England's MPC is:
* The Governor of the Bank
* The two Deputy Governors
* The Bank's Chief Economist
* The Executive Director for Market Operations
* Four external members, appointed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer
So, that's four out of nine appointed by the government. Plus the governor, which is a Civil Service position.

Iwan

My best mate completed on the sale of his house last week, he had an offer the day it went up for sale and AFAIK it was 1k under the askign price (somewhere around £125k). To be honest the house is nice after he did a lot of work on it, but the area is a bit minging being right in a town centre (loads of alleyways, gardens all overlooking each other etc). I guess it was priced about right and the right person was in the right place at the right time.

The house next door too me is up for sale, it's really lovely in quite a nice area near the edge of town. But it's been up for sale for 2 months now with no sign of a 'Sold' board appearing. It's weird but i'd have though tit would have sold much quicker, and my mates would have taken longer.

I'd be tempted to put an offer in on the one next door (i'm renting mine) but I suspect it's overpriced.

MattW

Hmmm

Iwan

I don't think they've complained about the de-cat.

But if it is that i'll put a louder exhaust on, and de-value their house a bit more before making them a ridiculously low offer on it.

Diesel

OMG!!!! 4 weeks after walking away they have come back and accepted my offer Missus is well chuffed

R1916v

lol saw my folks the other day who just slipped into the convo that they sold their house.

Was up for less than a week and someone offered a few k under the asking price. Can't believe they are selling it though it's great, and I've seen some of the crap places they are going to look at

philc

put a house on the market in early May, but have had no interest so far.

Estimated sale price from the local estate agents was 180 (lowest) to 225 (highest); so settled for median price of 205k.

And there's no chain.