Our house is on the market. It effectively went live about 3 weeks ago when the agent came back to work. For the first couple of weeks it was dead and then this week four viewings. The agent has reported that it's gone bonkers in the last week with the phones going crazy and generally loads of viewings getting booked. Predictions in our area for the housing market are quite good. We've even had an offer but insultingly low... the excuse from the buyer is he doesn't want to pay too much in case he gets laid off in the next few months! I mean what a stupid excuse..... you don't see about buying a 500K house if you think there a reasonable chance you'll get the sack in the near future... I mean do you? He's just trying it on...
I’m being realistic, I’m happy to take my losses versus the asking price based on the apparent downward trend over the last 3 months, but I’m certainly not taking any new buyers estimated losses if prices continue to go down.
Why should I cover those too?
No stamp duty holiday in Wales (yet). Maybe I should immigrate - to England.
It depends how important it is to you to sell at the moment and how much they were asking you to accept. I went to see a house recently priced at 695 - I felt it was overpriced and offered 640. That was rejected and I moved on. Three weeks later the same house is now priced at 650 and unless they are lucky, I expect they will wish they had accepted my offer.
Part of my reasoning for the low offer was the fact that I expect that prices will drop substantially later in the year when unemployment rises - but at the end of the day, no one actually KNOWS what will happen.
I am currently set to buy a new home and I expect it will be worth less by the end of the year, but the house is what we have been looking for and we plan to keep it for years so I am not worried about not buying at the lowest point of the market.
Buying a home is a slightly different proposition than buying an investment, I agree. I was less concerned buying the house we live in as it was first and foremost a place we wanted to live, and longer term we won’t lose out.
I priced the house I’m selling at market value, it was selling when COVID hit, and the buyer pulled out citing health worries, so I’d be happy to take the genuine fall in prices since then. Maybe even a little less, but I’m certainly not going to cover the new buyers losses to wherever they think the market will bottom out.
Fortunately, I don’t need to sell it, and will rent it out again until such time as the market recovers. A pain, as I really don’t want to be a landlord, but I’m not giving money away either.
I listed my house in July 2019 and was quite keen to sell and move locations. After 6 weeks of no offers I reduced asking my ~3.2%
I recovered an offer a bit lower by some time wasters in September 2019. I ended up receiving an offer about 6% under the new asking price in December 2019, we negotiated a bit and ended up about 4.5% under current asking and about 6.5% under the original July 2019 asking price.
Part of the issue is that agents tend to overvalue. The offers I have made since have been in a very desirable location and have had to go to asking price (have an offer accepted), however the house I sold went for fair market value based on other sales in the last 18 months and the house I’m trying to buy is also going for fair market value.
I hope that makes sense!
I think pricing houses is as much an art as a science - taking in the seller's attitude to negotiation, need to sell or otherwise, own views on what it's worth, market trends etc. The house we now have an offer on came on the market in February and was priced at £X until five weeks ago, then it was reduced to £0.9X. I contacted the estate agent and said we were very interested but there was no point in us viewing it unless the sellers would consider an offer of £0.8X because that was all we could afford. I wasn't optimistic of hearing any more but three weeks ago the agent got back to me to fix a viewing and we subsequently agreed to buy it at £0.8X. The current Zoopla estimate of the value is roughly 0.9X - 1.1X (based on the last selling price and local house price inflation since then). So it seems a good deal to me, but I still think it will be worth less than we are paying for it by the end of the year.
The property market round our area is dominated by two large agents.
Their tactic is to sign on as many properties as possible by giving sellers optimistic valuations.
Sellers are so hopeful / gullible / desperate that they lap these valuations up and sign on ...
Then the property sits on the market for months and months and the price is gradually dropped until it either sells/gets withdrawn/moved to another agent.
The whole game is a complete time waste ... also they set the fee off the valuation not the sale price.
The great British home owner loves to think they have made a packet on their home so they are happy to play along with this game.
I think some do play some sort of game, but not everybody is like that.
I had a number of agents around before choosing one, they all had different valuations but it gave a range. That and what similar houses had sold for gave me an idea of what I’d want from the sale.
Just as their are many estate agents who over value and promise the earth (they’re estate agents, right?!) there are just as many buyers out there who think that somehow the pandemic means houses are suddenly worth 20-25% less.
I just find it odd that buyers are trying to transfer risk to the seller. Frankly, I don’t care if you only want to offer 20% less than asking because ‘you might lose your job later this year’. Not my problem to be blunt.
That’s also what I have always done, but these guys terms set the fee off a valuation. We didn’t use them for a recent sale, I didn’t spot it, my wife did. Sharp practice imho.
Yep, you can choose a more realistic agent if you actually want to get on and sell. But these guys just pump up the market. Some properties have been on the books for over a year.
With regards to offers it’s open season but local feedback is that prices are holding up and supply is limited.
For Zoopla values these are based off the "Z-index" and have both a range and a confidence level attached. Worth reading the small print of their figure when displayed. It used to be "the value of your house is estimated at 750k as the range is 500k-1m. The confidence level of this price is 3/5".
They look to have removed the confidence level from the valuation pages but it always always complained about. It was only ever meant to get you to request a valuation from a local agent and never really meant to be accurate - right ballpark wrong end etc. Agents pay extra to get the valuation leads so the motivation was always to supply these, never to be accurate.
Perhaps they've integrated their Hometrack acquisition into the values now but that is a very successful company in its own right so not sure why they would give for free what lenders pay hundreds of thousands for.
I have to say, we are very pleased - though we simply couldn't have afforded any more, so it wasn't canny negotiation on our part, just luck that the sellers were prepared to accept what we could pay. We haven't exchanged yet, so I am still keeping my fingers crossed!
We did have an email from Sowerby's (I think) in early March suggesting that across Norfolk average initial offers from buyers were around 92% of asking price and average selling price ended up at 95% which is what we would have generally being expecting to look for.
I had another from Durrants yesterday saying that Zoopla is reporting an 88% surge in buyer interest. I am rather pleased that (hopefully) we won't be caught up in any sort of short term buying frenzy.
Thanks for the heads up about their estimates - I'd always assumed that they were just that and couldn't take into account the precise state of the house etc etc
For anyone interested, they provide quite a bit of information about their estimates here https://help.zoopla.co.uk/hc/en-gb/c...rice-Estimates
I wonder at what point agents will start relying on this sort of data driven estimate for their own idea of value (if not doing it already)?
Agents already rely quite heavily on the Rightmove Best Price Guide as Rightmove have a bigger share of the market so their figures are much more reliable than Zoopla's. In truth it isn't too difficult to price a residential properly as they're all marketing appraisals and if there's no interest you can just reduce it. Many RICS qualified surveyors are also agents so it would be interesting to know how much they rely on the Rightmove Best Price Guide.
Hometrack data is great and used for a lot of desktop valuations by lenders but I think it might be too expensive for smaller operations. It's been a while since I was at Zoopla but I'd imagine they might allow agents to buy access to Hometrack data on a per postcode basis or even £100 per property etc as it's just revenue sitting there waiting to be claimed.
No one should pay more than 1% plus vat. Shop around or haggle.
Sorry for the late reply.... the notification ended up in my spam folder. In fact it looks like all notifications for several months have been marked as spam.... something must have changed.
Well the government sticking their oar in has now effectively wiped 35K off our house!
Well that's just marvellous :-(
Sorry to hear. I think it varies area to area and there is more activity within certain price ranges. A 3 bed detached just came on here for 50k more than the a house 4 bed semi just sold for, but with quite a weak agent so perhaps that was the biggest valuation. No floorplan available as it would highlight the insane £ per sq ft it's on for. We're semi interested but are not enquiring while it's on at this price.
Some people I'm speaking to think the stamp duty cut will make everyone over 500k put another 10-15k on the asking price instead but we'll see.
Our agent said it's the houses at the lower end of the 500K asking price that seem to be suffering. tbh I thought it wouldn't matter because those people that had set themselves a budget of, for example, 535K had already resigned themselves to the higher stamp duty. However it appears that those buyers are now thinking let's consider a 499K house and save the 35K plus the 17K stamp duty. It's a bit of a mystery to me. On the slightly good side we'll save the stamp duty on our next house - we were already aiming at that 475-500K bracket but in a 'better' location. So we loose the 35K but save the stamp duty...
I don't follow this... the new stamp duty on a £535K house is £1750 (though it does jump to £17800 if it's a second home - https://www.stampdutycalculator.org.uk/ )
Although there is no SDLT upto £500k, I think buyers are now limiting themselves to £500k even though the SDLT they would pay above £500k is lower than normal
Its a mindset so sellers slightly above £500k will need to be at £500k to have a better chance of getting a sale imo.
Like many people I've had problems with Estate Agents in the past but I would never sell a house without using one, I learned that lesson many years ago when selling a house myself.
I'd always use a local agent who knows the area really well, valuation and setting the price correctly is paramount. I don`t mind paying a little more if the service provided is good, sometimes the agents do earn their fees by managing a sale efficiently.
Having just agreed to buy another property I`ll be putting mine up for sale v. shortly, the market seems quite lively at the moment and I want to take full advantage of that. The stamp duty change has helped a little, I live in an area where house prices are modest (sensible?) but the savings are still worthwhile. As I`ll be owning 2 houses for a (short) while I would've liked to see stamp duty scrapped on 2nd homes too, but I`ll claim that back eventually.
It'll be interesting to see what happens to property prices over the next 6-9 months, I wouldn't be surprised to see prices falling in places like London, surely the appeal of living in a large metropolis has been dampened somewhat by recent events and the model of commuting daily by overcrowded public transport to do an office job that can be done from home will become attractive? Of course, I could be wrong.
In my area a budget of £230-260K will still buy a decent 4 bed modern detached house on a modern development, a fall in the market of 10% wouldn't have a huge impact and the stamp duty holiday won't have much impact. Contrast that with the desirable suburbs around London where prices are far higher, a 10% drop would be a big chunk of negative equity for many.
Whoever coined the phrase 'its grim up North' should perhaps think again!
There is the other view as expressed by two of my daughters (pre the £500k announcement). As first time buyers, they had an SDLT free threshold of £300k.
One bought at £305k, the other at £315k; one paid £250 SDLT, the other is going to save £750 but both had the attitude that it’s only a small amount to pay and were happy to go above the threshold fir the right house.
My strong opinion on Stamp Duty hasn`t changed, it's a grossly unfair tax with its origins in history, it should be scrapped completely. Same argument applies to the relatively low threshold for inheritance tax.
Will it change?........no chance! Governments of either colour won`t do this, it's like getting turkeys to vote for Christmas.
The words 'fair' and taxation often don`t belong in the same sentence.
Whats the deal with buying and selling at the moment. Normally we would just market ours and start looking. Should we have ours under offer before looking at the moment or are things still much the same as they used to be? Im assuming viewings will be fun and games but we are more than happy to vacate our house if anyone is serious and wants to come and look. Thanks, Rob.
Business as usual from what I've seen - I'm in the process of picking an agent to market our house and the general consensus is that the market is very quick and prices are generally buoyant still. The agent today suggested that if we weren't on the market, we weren't seen as serious despite the issue being that our house will likely sell inside of a month and we've seen two houses we like in a month of viewings but not enough to view - we don't want to be rushed. Neither suggested we needed to be under offer to move, but I am selling a starter home in a city so movement is quick so no worry that we'll be stuck trying to sell for a year. Viewings, as you say, are usually you vacating the premises unless you're doing them yourself via Purplebricks etc.
I’ve just sold, completed 3 weeks again and I’m about 2 weeks from completing on the house I’m going too.
The market up north is still flying from what I’m seeing.
You won’t be able to move on a property until you’ve agreed a sale on your own property. Unless it’s very diffferent where you live?
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Certainly not been mentioned to me at all yet - but I am selling a 2 bed at the bottom of the market, and not attempting to use my whole sale equity to leverage the next property - I've only seen one advert explicitly state that viewings were contingent on proof of either funds to buy outright or confirmation from your agent that your house is on the market. It's definitely a sellers market round here at the moment, good houses are on the market for a matter of days when priced correctly.
I've viewed a lot of properties recently and viewings are certainly not contingent on any proof. Some people are trying to make offers without having a sale agreed on their property but those offers are pretty meaningless...no vendor will seriously wait for someone else to sell their property.
I had my offer on a property accepted a couple of weeks ago and found that the estate agent I'm dealing with is very pushy about proof of mortgage, sale of my own property etc...he's gone as far as finding out who my buyer is mortgaging with and has been contacting that lender to find out the progress. Never experienced that before.
If you need to sell in order to buy and yours isn't on the market (or is but isn't under offer) any offer you make is officially deemed as a reckless offer. An agent submitting a reckless offer without declaring it as such can be suspended or removed from whichever ombudsman scheme they're a part of.
In short if you're not proceedable then you're not serious and shouldn't be taken seriously.
From the Ombudsman:
10. Financial Evaluation
10a At the time that an offer has been made and is being considered by the seller, you must take reasonable steps to find out from the buyer the source and availability of their funds for buying the property and pass this information to the seller. Such information will include whether the buyer needs to sell a property, requires a mortgage, claims to be a cash buyer (*) or any combination of these. Such relevant information that is available should be included in the memorandum of sale having regard to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998.
10b You must put all offers to your seller client even if the buyer has not been financially qualified at that stage.
10c These reasonable steps must continue after acceptance of the offer until exchange of contracts and must include regular monitoring of the buyer’s progress in achieving the funds required, and reporting such progress to the seller.
You may be confusing two issues here. Some vendors will not let people view there house unless a sale has been agreed on there’s. It can reduce the amount of wasted time and viewings that take place. The second issue is you can not put an offer in on a property unless you have a sale agreed on your property. There is however a caveat to that, if you can purchase the next property without having to sell your property. We have just done this and it makes life a lot easier, speak to your mortgage advisor and see what they advise. The downside to this is you need to provide the additional stamp duty as you are now purchasing a second house effectively.
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I had to jump through a load of hoops to get a viewing on a property I wanted to see…. They were really insistent on having a financial assessment…. Turns out it was sharp marketing and I was very curt with them…. They just wanted their in house mortgage advisor to pitch for my business, so, I told them to bugger off…. What a bunch of chancers - do they think people are stupid? There was sod all they could have done for me anyway as I can expand my existing mortgage with my current provider!
Leveraged it to get the viewing sped up…. Liked it and will place an offer as soon as we get a buyer for ours.
I viewed a property about the end of May (I think!), but the agent told me that the seller couldn't view anywhere until they had an offer on their property. The agent told me this was to limit their clients and themselves from unnecessary interactions. No idea if that was an agent decision, she seemed to suggest not; regardless, it put me right off looking.
I'm basically just keeping an eye out for now, haven't spoken to my mortgage advisor since then, so have no idea what my current budget is (when I spoke to her, about the above place, my budget had dropped massively). I'm expecting to just sit tight until after furloughing ends, when I think this false positivity will come crashing back down. I certainly have no desire to spend what I had previously agreed to buy though, I'll be looking at cheaper places, this has scared me with financial uncertainty.