[Closed] Not many houses for sale?

The good ones sell fast. As annoying as they are you need to get in with the estate agents. By the time houses pop up on rightmove or in the paper they will already have been rejected by a lot of people which should tell you something.

I am hoping we might get a good deal as we don't have kids and don't plan to so are happy buying something which might put families off - school catchments, smaller gardens, weird layouts aren't as big of an issue for us!

Market definitely slowed in London where new higher stamp duty has discouraged people from moving. Not sure elsewhere.

house prices have subdued recently - im not saying dipped cause its not true but the rise folk are wanting isnt happening so there just isnt the volume of houses coming to market that there was.

Not much is appearing for sale on the open market round here (stockport) , no idea if that means they are coming up for sale , but then being sold immediately so therefore not appearing on rightmove/estate agents windows.

The only stuff that is for sale appears to me to be over priced/right next to the new bypass that is in the process of being built.

I'd guess that the impending election is putting people's plans on hold. We were in a B&B in the Lakes over Easter who said the last time they weren't full over Easter was an Election year....

What @footflaps says, I think that is definitely a factor

New mortgage rules.
Took me three hours on the phone just to remortgage with the same lender (not moving) Last year it took me 5.

I know one couple who almost moved last March, had a mortgage agreed etc but chain fell through. Now the same couple can't borrow the same amount (20k less) because of all those extra questions the banks (rightly) have to ask and look into.

Im certain this is having an effect, property is being reduced all the time around here

market may have slowed on average but not everywhere!

Just in the process of buying now in East/inner Bristol; generally speaking nice houses are selling within about a day of coming onto the market, fixer uppers are taking a few days, and prices are a good 10% or more up on this time last year. (also most things are going above asking price).

There were/are plenty coming on to the market, and it's true about getting in with the agent - after we'd seen the same lady 3 or 4 times in one week she started showing us places before they'd even officially been put up.

I don't know about putting plans on hold - as a first time buyer you just want to get in there quick before prices sail off over the horizon for good - but i guess other people will have different priorities...

Round here houses seem to go quickly, that's mid beds

you need to be getting notification from agents as soon as houses are on the market

Quite a lot for sale where I am (Perthshire) and they either go quick or take 6-7 months or more to sell.

2 neighbours just sold their house with just 1 day posting .. i don't even know how it is possible

In Huddersfield area BTW.

I guess you must be in the sub £250K band, because the market here for more expensive homes had been stagnant for a few years, hence all the unsold properties you refer to. I know, because my other house is one of them 🙁

Lots here in our (fairly big) village not far from Derby - possibly a generational thing as original owners on the estate are starting to downsize 30-40 years on.

Those that price to sell get sold quickly, those that don't really need to take a look at themselves!

[url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/11518426/Renter-paranoia-blights-the-housing-market.html ]Buyers are giving up as prices too high[/url]

The bottom graph is interesting - there's basically no buyers coming in at the bottom of the pyramid as they can't afford current prices based on their current and future expected salaries.

I suspect sellers are hoping if they wait, prices will resume their previous rise after the election...

Personally I'd take the advice above - price sensibly (and fairly) rather than to 'make a profit'

we managed to sell ours just b4 xmas and things seem to have really slowed down in our part of that london (according to our estate agent)

to be fair I though the house was overpriced hen we bought it, what we just sold it for is silly imho

the government have tried really hard to keep the bubble going, im just not sure that its that sustainable, even in the south east

There's loads.....
We've been looking and must have seen 30 odd houses. We were being quite picky about what we wanted, but looking at everything.
There's a lot of rubbish out there though, and some quite overpriced.
as has been said, you need to be on agents lists to get tipped off about stuff. The couple that have bought mine must have done this.
My house went up on the market lateish on a Tuesday, proberbly about 4pm when the details went live. I had a call at 5pm to do a viewing at 5.30pm, then the next day a call to see if they could go back mid morning and an offer at very nearly asking price by 12.30. So it can happen really quickly!!

We have just accepted an offer on ours in a few weeks. Neighbours with similar property have been on at a higher price for months with apparently no interest (acording to the agents, who we also used, and found very good).

Depends how desperate you are for the few quid extra I suppose, we might have squeezed out 3-5k more if we had been really really lucky and been prepared to wait indefinitely. That's a lot of cash in our pockets, but the house is already empty and costing us bills and time so we are happy to get shot of it.

Sounds like I just need to get it on the market ASAP and sign up to the agents in the area to let me know about new houses on the market.

I am hoping I don't get some buy-to-let investor buying my house as they have a bit of a reputation round here for dropping their price when it is expensive to back out of the sale.

I think I'm set on going with an online agent to do the sale of our place - £5-600 instead of £2k at a normal agents doesn't make sense if houses are selling well at the moment.

I am hoping I don't get some buy-to-let investor buying my house as they have a bit of a reputation round here for dropping their price when it is expensive to back out of the sale.

We sold a buy to let flat to a BTL investor last year. It has some settlement, so was difficult to sell as it kept raising subsidence red flags. At the last minute he asked for £2K off, we were over the moon as we were prepared to knock up to £20k off to shift it given the issues!!

Just had an offer excepted in Reigate, put it in on the first day of viewings and we offered pretty close to asking as everything good has been moving fast recently.

weren't actually looking too intently, just keeping an eye so it felt like we pretty much 'impulse bought' a house 🙂

Update - after a few weeks looking at houses (pretty much anything within budget even if it looked unsuitable on the Internet) I was starting to get worried as we couldn't find a place. Everything either needs drastic work which we couldn't do as we need to live in the house or they are vastly overpriced.

So drastic action - I made a short and friendly leaflet and posted about 150 in the village we want to live in. Got a couple of responses, one from an already overpriced house which I think we will go and look at - it's already on the market. The other one hasn't been put on the market and it's one of the houses we really want. I don't know if it will be in budget but it should be. We are going to meet the owners on Thursday, hopefully we can sort a deal out. I don't necessarily want a bargain, just a fair price, and in the meantime save the sellers the EA fees.

Market definitely slowed in London where new higher stamp duty has discouraged people from moving. Not sure elsewhere.

slowed relative to what though? i have a flat in a small block of 14. when i was looking to move last year i couldn’t even look at anything as it was gone before listed or went for over asking, managed to find somewhere i was happy with but had a short lease (not silly short 75 years) which put people off and i know it will be £12k to extend in 2 years time but i factored that into the price.

8 months later and 2 basement flats are for sale for 60k more than i paid and one has sold 1 week later the other under offer. so in my part of SE19 things are back to normal, maybe something to do with Foxtons opening here a few months ago.

If you are buying/selling in the same area, let your selling agent do some of the work and see if they can find someone and/or recommend you to their 'mates'.

2 neighbours just sold their house with just 1 day posting .. i don't even know how it is possible

sold our house through an agency before it even made it on to rightmove. The agency had someone on their books who was looking, and then made an offer at the full asking price.

Singed contract with agent on the Friday, a couple saw the house on Monday, made an offer on Tuesday which we accepted. House appeared on Rightmove on Wednesday marked as Sold STC.

Now we just have to find a place. Agencies will always seem to give first refusal for new properties to people who have sold though them.

Now we just have to find a place.

That's the difficult bit!

Update - went to look at the houses who had contacted us. The one that was already on the market was fantastic, absolutely mint. But it's still £30k overpriced in our eyes. I don't know why I daren't offer them such a cut off their asking price, maybe I should.

The other house which isn't on the market was fab, fields at the end of the garden, nice big garden too. House was fairly basic but in good condition. They are going to figure out a price and get back to us.

We also caught wind of another place which we visited. Again this was a complete minter with very high spec interior but it was a bit small. They are going to come back with a price for us too.

While my wife was away I decided to have a drive round another village and found by chance a house with a handwritten for sale sign outside. Rang the number and had a chat with the owner, going to see it tonight!

Well I have just made a cheeky offer on the house we went to have a 2nd viewing on - offered 180k, asking price £210k

Well if you don't ask???

Found out we may have to move out on the 28th Aug and we have nowhere to move to yet - thankfully some friends are putting us up for a while but I'd like to get an offer accepted somewhere soon!

If you don't cringe when you make your first offer, its not low enough 😉

On our new place (just moved in, it's lovely!) we offered 20k under the asking price and settled at 15k under in the end. It's always worth asking 😉

On our new place (just moved in, it's lovely!) we offered 20k under the asking price and settled at 15k

so was it up for £560k or £80k? a meaningless statement without the asking price.

I wouldn't be shy about offering £30k under price, the worse they can do is say no.

I like to idea of posting leaflets, I have heard of this a few times and seems a good way forward.

My sister was about to offer on a place a few years ago just around the corner from her house. She was walking round with my dad to show him and saw people clearing furniture out of a different house. Got chatting to the people who were relatives of the recently deceased owner. She looked a the house and shook hands on it 15 minutes later.

If you don't cringe when you make your first offer, its not low enough

That's a perfect way to put it!

My sister was about to offer on a place a few years ago just around the corner from her house. She was walking round with my dad to show him and saw people clearing furniture out of a different house. Got chatting to the people who were relatives of the recently deceased owner. She looked a the house and shook hands on it 15 minutes later.

I had a drive round the area and found a house with a handwritten for sale sign outside it, enquired about the house there and then. Unfortunately it needed way too much work but its always worth checking in person around the area.

I wouldn't be shy about offering £30k under price, the worse they can do is say no.

It's 14% less, which sounds a lot better than £30k less!

We offered well below asking on our house just to show we were genuinely interested. We expected a counter offer but the low bid was accepted with no negotiation.

Thanks for the positive comments! We went through our finances last night and agreed what our max offer is. This first offer is a genuine offer of what I think it's worth at its reasonable lowest amount. Not trying to get a mega bargain as we like the house a lot but the offer we have made is £10k less than they paid for it BUT they bought at the peak of the market in 2008.

We can go up a little and I will do as the house needs nothing doing to it and is pretty much perfect. Even has an electric garage door and a door into the kitchen from the garage - most important thing in my book!

Personally I'd wait till early next year if you can and see what happens with interest rates and also the BTL-ers' response to the changes in the last budget.

There's few people who think houses are at fair value at the moment. It'll take some time for sellers to accept this I suspect but given an interest rate rise reducing the amount both owner-occupiers and BTLers can pay, and a few more over-stretched BTLers selling up + a little more negativity in the media about BTL and I suspect asking prices will begin to become more realistic...

As always this article doesn't clarify whether it's talking asking or selling price and it seems odd that some areas would drop so much whilst others increase so much. From what I've seen of the data, it's asking prices but it suggests the situation in London is no longer constant sky-high increases.

[url= http://www.cityam.com/221001/london-house-prices-north-south-divide-emerging-londons-property-sector ]Falls in London?[/url]

I can't wait till next year though, I have to move out end of August!

We made an offer [cheeky one, but the only one they've had] on a property that's been on the market for nearly a year, offer was made on the 17th of July and we're still waiting for a reply.
I sent EA an email on the 23rd just to jolly them up.

Making cheeky offers is fine but be careful as more likely to get gazumped, in reality cheeky offers will mostly get rejected if the market is strong enough so if they're accepted can mostly stick. I last bought in 2007 as things were getting quite boomy, 1st offer was rejected but still ended up paying under the asking price - not bad as someone then tried to gazump me with an asking price offer but vendor was a decent chap who I'd put in the effort to develop a decent relationship with.

Yeah I have thought of that, nothing I can do really as my maximum amount is just that, can't go much higher!

One slight issue is that they don't have an EA to advise them. The company they used to get their house on Rightmove are just an advertising company, not an EA, so I will be negotiating with the sellers myself. I would assume an EA would have advised them on the price for a start (what they have asked is a bit high) and maybe sold us as great buyers to them (we have already sold, don't really have a chain as we are moving in with friends in the meantime). I think they are clever enough to realise all aspects of a offer are important but you never know.

A friend of mine accepted a great offer on a house of theirs and rejected all other offers but it turned out the great offer wasn't backed up with a mortgage in place - they had to pull out quite quickly but the other interested parties had moved on and found something elsewhere.

Hi mudshark, why would i need to be careful? i'm a cash buyer so they can take it or leave it, but would like to know either way.

I suppose the best thing to do is make sure people take their property off the market if they accept an offer. If they don't I would ask them why and explain that it would be hard for me to invest in legal stuff/searches/surveys if they might be looking for a higher offer (and therefore would result in me being gazumped).

They haven't replied to my offer yet - the wait is killing me!

twinw4ll - if you're a cash buyer you can move quickly, especially if you forget about a survey. Thing is to make sure the vendor moves quickly too. Other than that explicitly ask the vendor to take the property off the market as part of accepting your offer, I did this and still had an attempted gazumping from someone who'd already seen it though.

I cringed when we made an offer on the house we've just bought. It was over asking price and nearly twice what we paid for our last one.

Still, when the other half has decided it's the one they want, you're pretty stuffed.

Better to get the right house at the wrong price than the wrong house at the right price 🙂

sold our house through an agency before it even made it on to rightmove. The agency had someone on their books who was looking, and then made an offer at the full asking price.

Singed contract with agent on the Friday, a couple saw the house on Monday, made an offer on Tuesday which we accepted. House appeared on Rightmove on Wednesday marked as Sold STC.

Now we just have to find a place. Agencies will always seem to give first refusal for new properties to people who have sold though them.

Better to get the right house at the wrong price than the wrong house at the right price

Probably what we paid, I suspect there's a lot of scope to add value to it, in the first instance just by doing the decorating, then there's room to extend, add en-suites etc. But I suspect if you did all that you'd only make your money back not any profit.

Still, it's still about the cheapest house on the street, and not the smallest by a long way!

The house I put an offer in is the most expensive house on the street. I don't like the fact they aren't using an EA at all as it makes it very difficult to know what's happening

[i]The house I put an offer in is the most expensive house on the street. I don't like the fact they aren't using an EA at all as it makes it very difficult to know what's happening[/i]

Indeed, you need to get a line of communication open via email or something else. You can then say to them, something along the lines of:

'I really don't want to pressure you, as I realise these matters take a great deal of consideration. However, we have another house we are interested in and although yours is our preferred option, if we can't get it within our budget, then we need to make a move on this other house. Therefore, if you could let me know your thoughts asap, we'd appreciate it.'

In April the government imposed capital gains tax on the sale of properties that are not the primary residence. I would expect thats affecting the housing market too as its certainly stopped me selling up.

In April the government imposed capital gains tax on the sale of properties that are not the primary residence.

Hasn't that always been the case?

Hasn't that always been the case?

Maybe in part, i left the UK to work abroad a few years ago and before April would not have had to pay capital gains on selling my house in the UK.

https://www.gov.uk/tax-foreign-income/residence

Quite a sensible change then, makes it less beneficial to stuff overseas money into UK property.

Yeah, i can see why they did it, i'm just bitter that i wasn't aware of the change before it happened 😀
Right now its better for me to keep the place rented than to sell it, due to the tax.

Better to get the right house at the wrong price than the wrong house at the right price

Agree 100% on that. (Generally speaking) You have to live there!

robdob - fancy moving to Hebden Bridge? Ours on the market for under £160k. Great spot, nice features, 2 bedrooms (easily converted to 3). Riding galore on your doorstep.

Thanks for the offer but too far away for us, we want to stay around Huddersfield. 🙂

Ha, no worries. Huddersfield's great too - massively underrated. Good luck with buying.

It looks like we are moving out on Friday! This would be cause for celebration however we haven't got another house to move to. Thankfully staying with friends but it's going to be tough for a while. 🙁