UK Housing Market
 

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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Re: UK Housing Market
 

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.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

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.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

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.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

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 :lol:

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.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

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.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

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.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

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.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

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.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

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.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

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'.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

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.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

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.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

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...

Re: UK Housing Market
 

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.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

We always watch the housing market very closely. We've sold 10 houses in the last 20 years, in Bedfordshire and Sussex. Prices shot up at an alarming rate over the past 2 years, particularly in London and the South East. Other areas saw slower increases and a few were stable. This has had a negative impact, the market priced itself out and also new mortgage rules mean that in the last couple of months, the number of mortgage approvals have dropped, sales have dropped and prices are now going down.
Your agent possibly doesn't want to give you any bad news, but basically the market is changing to a buyers market.
At the end of the day, there are 2 things that you are in control of when selling a house. Price and Condition. If it's been rented for a long period then the condition is going to need some work. And as I already mentioned, nationally, prices are being reduced! Good luck!:o

Re: UK Housing Market
 

Really, comparative recent sales are your most useful information. Asking prices are pure fiction until there is an actual sale.

I'm coming over in October to start looking for an English "pied a terre", the start of my "medium-term retirement planning" as well!

Re: UK Housing Market
 

It'll be a Brit-fest - I'm back in Oct and Dec having a look-around with a view to moving back - we'll have to get Sally to be chauffer :)

Re: UK Housing Market
 

go look here:

Free UK Sold House Prices - Nethouseprices.com

By putting in the area etc, you can see what prices houses ACTUALLY sold for. The info comes from the UK land registry.
Admittedly it runs approx 3 months behind the actual sale but it means you can find a house on rightmove , say, then check what it actually sold for. It also gives some history of the times the house has been bought and sold.

It then gives you a rough idea of the difference between asking and selling price.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

Ask your estate agent what he/she thinks are the reasons for the house not selling.
Ask them what they think can be done to improve chances of a sale.
Are the estate agents getting the viewings?
Are potential buyers viewing the house but not following up?
Ask them if the condition of your house is similar to other homes in the area.
Check on nethouseprices as stated above to see how many sales there have been locally. i.e. how buoyant the local market is.
Check on Zoopla and Rightmove to see which estate agent has most houses for sale in your area and consider changing estate agents. (or threaten to )

Re: UK Housing Market
 

I found the Zoopla 'valuations' to be WAY off.

Two years ago we sold the 1st house we bought after moving back in 2011. It was a 3BR modern townhouse built in 2004 in a small gated development. After we bought it, we painted top to bottom, put in new carpets, and fixed everything that needed fixing. The EXACT same house, next door to ours, had original builder carpets, no improvements and original builder magnolia paint, yet the Zoopla value was roughly £20K higher than ours.

Why? Easy - the Zoopla 'value' was based on the last selling price; next door changed hands at the top of the pre-crash market (late 2006). We bought when prices were going down, but not quite at the bottom. Even adding things as the owner didn't appreciably change the Zoopla value, as they use an algorithm for the calculation.

Rightmove also show actual sales prices, not just what's for sale. Any website that allows a view of prices over time can give you a decent estimate of current value in today's market.

The biggest favour you can do yourself to get the best price is to make sure it's CLEAN. It's amazing how many houses we viewed (priced above £200K) that were absolutely filthy. The one we are in now had been vacant for a year - but they left junk in the kitchen cupboards and drawers, bags of rubbish in the garage, and the carpets had stains all over, plus there was thick dust on all baseboards etc. When we got the keys we were running the vacuum before the furniture was moved in, and had the carpets replaced immediately.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

Ha ha only just saw this :lol:

Re: UK Housing Market
 

Before Jerseygirl moderated your clip, I viewed the sales video. The interiors looked computer generated to me, not photographs. Am I right? As a buyer that would put me off viewing. I'd think that the interiors were so awful that they could not be photographed.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

It really boils down to luck at times, I once sold my house before the agents had even produced a brochure. They came round to value, as they were doing that someone from the next street had just sold, and the new people wanted a quick turnaround, they rang the agents who told them of our house, they rang us direct and came round that night, looked around and made an asking price offer which we accepted. When the agents came round the next day to put the board up it already have 'sold subject to contract' on it.

It won't happen in many areas, but in the very popular ones, even the property location programmes have major problmes with houses selling before people cacn go for a second viewing, so people are 'expressing interest' straight after viewing so that the agents will come back to them if there is an offer. Perhaps the agents could organise an 'open day' these are becoming very popular in the UK now, BUT the house does need to be in show condition, with any repairs done, and paintwork neutral and clean.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

I'm in a similar position in that I'm trying to sell my house in Wensleydale after the tenants have moved out. I had all the walls repainted (but not the glosswork) and the carpets cleaned and the garden and hedges cut. I've put it up at ten per cent less than the lowest valuation of three - and yet I've had no viewings since April. Someone is viewing it this week but only because the agent talked them into it along with seeing another similar property, for a comparison. The agent has no idea why there have been no viewings. Property is selling in the area and it's normally a popular place to buy. It may be because it's rather large and mortgages are a lot harder to come by nowadays but it's frustrating to decide to let it go at such a low price and still have no interest.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

I'd actually be quite happy to move back to my house but I have property in France I need to sell before I can do that. I've advertised on various swap sites for the French property as I'd be quite happy to swap for something lettable in the UK or even an easily maintainable holiday home somewhere. Have you considered doing a swap?

Re: UK Housing Market
 

If it's been on the market that long without any viewings, maybe it's not actually a low price? Really, a house is worth what a willing buyer would currently pay a willing seller, not what someone thinks the valuation is. Did the valuations indicate other recent sales to justify their numbers?

Of course, all you need is one viewer that's interested so maybe this week's viewing will work out...

Re: UK Housing Market
 

The valuations were done by three local estate agents. At the time, they said the market was moving down south and was just reaching the local area but hadn't quite reached that town yet. I've reduced the price again since April but still no interest other than people downloading the brochure. The estate agent wasn't happy with me reducing the price because he thinks it's already under priced. It's now closely priced to another on the same row which is only two thirds the size of mine and which doesn't have the double garage mine has. Weird. Perhaps it won't sell and when the kids finish lycee and go off to uni I'll end up moving back and opening up a B&B :)

Re: UK Housing Market
 

To give an indication of timing of valuations, the highest valuation I got this year was about the same as one I had in 07 and the lowest was the same as one I got the year before that. I set it at below the lowest valuation and I've now dropped the price but it is still ten per cent higher than what I paid for it in 04. Maybe I'll end up selling it for what I paid for it ten years ago.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

I would go back to the agents and ask what they are basing their valuations on. And/or do my own research of comparative recent sales in the area.

Re: UK Housing Market
 

I have. I watch zoopla and rightmove carefully and get reports of properties sold in the town and mine still looks cheap.