Stu Ward

OK, so i'm not actually looking to move back to the UK, but I htought this was the best spot for this topic

We still have our house in the UK and it is on the market.
I've been in Australia for 6 years and I've grown used to the extremely agressive shark infested pool that is the housing market here.

Houses seem to sell within 5 mins of the boards going up.

Well our UK property has been up for 8 weeks, with a few visits but not an offer

To those that are back in the UK, what is your opinion of the housing market ?
Our Estate agents refuse to say that it is flat, but all the houses in our area are still up for sale too.

The house is in good nick, but has been rented out for 6 years so cosmetically could be better I admit, but I would have thought that prospective buyers would see past that. I know I would.

Any opinion of the current market would be appreciated

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chris955

We are loosely in the Midlands and the housing market is definitely picking up and prices rising. The Midlands is a big area of course and it can be very different just a few miles apart.

mikelincs

One of the biggest problems will be that the house has not been put into 'sell' condition, to get good quick offers the house needs to be in good decorative order, neutral colours and 'decluttered'. Many house hunters do NOT see past the decoration and condition, and think that it will need redecorating etc before they can move in, which adds to time and cost. A house in good decorative order, that can be moved into withour any redecoration, will always sell much faster. The current market is very good, with prices rising to new high levels in all parts of the country, at least according to surveys of the housing market released this week.

dunroving

It's regional. A colleague house-hunting in Edinburgh is experiencing exactly what you describe in Australia. she can't get even a generous offer accepted because the "sharks" are offering silly money.

In Glasgow, it's not like that at all. In the better areas, house sales are "healthy" but not crazy. In the not so good areas, the market is stagnant.

And no, I'm afraid many house buyers will not look past a shabby interior. It won't stop you getting an offer but it may certainly reduce the number of offers or delay a decent offer. £1,000 spent painting the walls and making small improvements (is the lawn being kept cut?) can have a miraculous effect.

rebs

I'm not really sure there is any such thing as the 'UK property market' it is all so variable across the country. It's like asking for the UK weather forecast, you would need to look at a much more regional level

There is a board on the moneysavingsexpert forum which is dedicated to house buying & selling and they might have some ideas (or some more localised info)

House Buying, Renting & Selling - MoneySavingExpert.com Forums

Regarding buyers seeing past any cosmetic issues, you are right in that people ought to be able see past it. However, anecdotally I have heard that due to the way mortgage lending is now potential buyers are having to throw all their spare money at a deposit so have nothing left for upgrades. Therefore, buyers are expecting more from the condition of the property.

bigglesworth

The variety of replies tells you there are indeed a variety of markets.
Google "UK house prices" and the Guardian will tell you they are going up, the FT that they are going down and somebody else that they are unchanged.

It has been widely reported that asking prices had the sharpest fall in July for many years. But that is asking prices and could just mean that the recent tendency to take the agents valuation and add five or ten percent has come to a halt.

Bear in mind that it is August. Virtually nobody buys in July and August. It is a family house and nobody wants to disrupt family life at the start of a school year.
It will now pick up for the next couple of months so people can move for Christmas before slowing to a virtual halt for December to February.
Housing is both cyclical and seasonal.

On a wider front, what none of us know is the effect of the increased pace of housebuilding. It is still not high enough, but both starts and completions are the highest they have been for twenty years and look like going higher still. There is an awfully long way to go to correct the shortfall built up over that time, but confidence is a funny thing.

dunroving

As I am doing some medium-term planning for retirement (hopefully in 4 years), I find this very annoying. I plan to move elsewhere in the UK when I am done with this job. Search on Rightmove with a budget of, say, £150k and you don't know whether a house marked as £150k is really £150k, 5% less, 10% less, or even 10% more. It seems to be regional, and fluid, so even looking at recent sales process doesn't tell you what the current mark-up is. I'd even hazard to guess that in the same area, some estate agents mark up more/less than others.

mikelincs

The problem the OP faces is that he is in OZ, and really needs a relative or friend to go look at the house as it is being marketed, and see if there are some simple things that can be done to improve the appearance to viewers, there is also he has no idea of how the property is being presented to potential buyers by the agent as he/she shows them round.

bigglesworth

DR have you tried Zoopla?

They seem a bit more realistic than, say, Rightmove and there is a facility to see actual sales prices street by street.

Editha

I think you are right that estate agents vary in how they value and mark up. Where I used to live in Staffordshire, agents tended to overvalue, often by a ludicrously wide margin. Asking prices did not begin to reflect actual sale prices.

mikelincs

Some sellers find that about the different prices for very similar properties in the same area, and you really do need to do some comparisons, even the property programmes have found that one huse in a street may be listed for 30 or 40 thousand more than a very similar property just a few doors away, but owners seem to think they know the property value better than the agents so refuse to drop to a more reasonable level, or refuse to accept perfectly good offers because they feel that the asking price is what they want, and won't drop evena few thousand to get a sale, so while other properties in the street are selling, there's just stays 'for sale'.

Tirytory

We sold out house last year within a day....but we realistically priced it, plus we show homed it. With houses where there are a few that look the same, you either have to make sure the price is appealing or that the inside of the house is appealing, so new paint, carpets maybe if necessary and furniture I think is huge. I think there are companies out there that can kit your house out for you if you can't get relatives to help. But you do need to do something- you have to help people see past it or be prepared to wait on it and them accept a lower offer.

Jerseygirl

I am sorry but you cannot use the forums to advertise your house. You may advertise it in the Classifieds forum and put a link to that in your signature.

robin1234

First, I agree with everyone who has said market conditions are very local.. I'm looking in a couple of towns in north Norfolk, and many properties remain on the market for a year or more and (anecdotally) prices if anything are a bit lower now than a year ago. And sold prices seem to be consistently at least five percent less than the asking price.

Second, as an obsessive Rightmove voyeur who has lived abroad for many years, one thing that really screams "major redecoration needed" to me is when one or more rooms has that ugly "accent wallpaper" on one of the walls. Favorite seems to be the wall in the living room with the fireplace, often a wall in a bedroom too...

spouse of scouse

If there's not much interest in your house, there are only two things you can try if you need a sale. Improve the look of it as suggested, and see if that makes a difference, or lower the price. Have you had your house valued and are you asking top dollar? (pound!).

In the end, it doesn't really matter what we think our property is worth, and sometimes it doesn't even matter what an agent thinks it's worth - the market will decide what it's worth.