Originally Posted by linda Coyle View Post
Have to disagree here Bil. Houses have been on sale in our area for months with no sale and many have either reduced or gone for fixed price. I have been in touch with our estate agent to ask about reducing or going for a fixed price and was told at the moment it won't make a difference "there is just no market just now". As my OH will need to find accommodation when I move over there and we sell here, we are now considering taking the house of the market and renting a room here - that way we still have our house and he doesn't need to find somewhere to stay.




And how precisely does this make me wrong? I could sell any property at any time IF I WERE ALLOWED TO REDUCE THE PRICE FAR ENOUGH.

Houses are not selling because the market is poor and people are not willing to reduce their asking price.

I bet your house would sell in a short while if you advertised it for a quarter the price you are asking.

If we had a situation where a large number of owners sell their properties at well below average value then the property market will decline at an even more alarming rate than is being experienced at present. A large percentage of recent buyers in the last few years don't own the property in it's entireity and would therefore be automatically in a negative equity situation. That's the last thing banks and lenders need !!!

ANYONE can sell ANYTHING in a short while if you pitch it for a quarter of its market value !! You don't have to be Sir Alan or his apprentice to arrive at that conclusion. Graduate of the Boot Sale School of Economics are you ??

Sheesh! I agree totally that if every one dumped property for a song the market would crash. God knows, it's bad enough that people are talking up a recession instead of trying to put a positive spin on stuff.

All I am saying is, that if an object is for sale, and no-one is buying it, the the price is too high for the market at that moment.

That is a simple truth. No argument you or anyone else can make can change it.

You might not want to drop the price, you might not be able to drop the price, but as sure as anything, that item, be it house or a bag of apples, will not sell until you drop the price, or the market improves.

This is all that I have said. How is that wrong?

If your property isn't selling at the moment it is because it is overpriced for the current market. That's it.

You may have trouble with the new reality of the very soft market, but if you price your property to sell it will do. Most people are still hoping to get a "good" price and are prepared to wait to see if they can can find a buyer willing to pay it, but if you wanted to sell next week you could do - all a function of price

Well we have done it, taken a silly offer. We have been trying to sell for 16mths, and it's the first offer we have had. It is dire here where we live, and the situation is getting worse every day. We thought if we didn't accept this offer we only have 3 mths to sell, because once we get to November no one will be looking at houses, all into Christmas mode, and it won't start to pick up until March, by which time we will be panicking about selling before our villa is ready in Spain. At least now we can move on, and start to make plans for our new life. I can't wait to hand my notice in at work, and that's it for good, no more work - yippee.

Really pleased for you Val. We have just dropped the price of our house by 20%, to be fair its a big house with land, no interest at all at the mo. Ithink if you really want to get out you just have to go with the flow. Better to have money in the bank even if it is a lot less than planned.

Your right, and we can put it in a high interest account and get some money back, while we wait for our villa.

Well done Val. "silly price" to me is ok as long as there is something left over. Have sent you a PM

Well done ValWe put our house up for sale last May with the intention/hope of moving over to Spain. We had one viewer, we should have known it was over priced by the amount of jumping around I did when the estate agent went after telling us the valuation, but then we were 'greedy' for that price. We dropped the price but still din't have any interest. We took it off the market to 'tart' it up again and are nearly ready to have it revalued, will let you know how much the price has dropped. The other half and me have decided on a price that we can take and still be able to move if we can't get that we will have to stay in England longer, we really thought we would be in Spain by now. Good luck everyone who is moving out

See? Not a question of boot sale economics, just economics plain and simple.

I'm very sorry for anyone who has to make a serious reduction.

(a) I am not at all rich, far from it after the divorce settlement. I am now too old to get another mortgage so I am saving like mad to have any chance of buying in the UK at all.
(b) 10k is a lot of money but your 5% of the deposit calculation doesnt get to 10k for a 200k house, it gets to 1k. People are talking of dropping their price by 20% which means a 200k house dropping to 160k in the first place. That 40k price reduction is twice the an incentive than even to pay all of a 10% deposit which is 20k for the same 200k house example. With some people asking 400k or even 500k a 20 drop in asking price from 500 to 400 or from 400 to 320 is significant and will attract more prospective buyers. The house I bought in 1990 was 135k one day and 90k a few weeks later. Now that took the house from out of reach into reach in my case.

You may be surprised (not that I know how old you are!). My mother had lived in rented accommodation for most of her adult life post divorce but was able to get a 10yr mortgage on retirement at the age of 60. The lender was more than happy that her regular pension income would be sufficient to pay off the mortgage, which she did at the age of 70, 2 years ago! However, the lending situation may be different now, 12 years on.

I think it was meant to be 1/2 of the 10% deposit, which is 5%.??? Not 5% of the deposit. Thats the way I interpreted it anyway.

Regards,
Albert.

I hope everything works out for you.

But please DON'T hand in your notice until contracts have been exchanged. Just to be safe.

Regards,
Albert.

Blimey, but that is grim. The one type of property you expect to maintain value and interest is one with land. I shudder to think how far you would have to drop to get the interest moving. The market must be a flat as a pancake. All we need now is for everyone to keep talking up a recession, and we will be in for a big one.