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Yes lots of different things affect the price. OP thinks they have discovered some kind of secret here.
People post on Reddit because they don't know why it hasn't sold at the price asked...... Here we can let them know.
-your house is painted brown
-take the moped out of the living room
-put some furniture in. There's shit on the wall. Etc etc
Lots of different solutions to achieving the price they want..... Not just lowering it when it doesn't sell.
I mean... OP is right but in a completely reversed logic fashion, so the implication is wrong.
Yep, price can compensate for almost anything in a given market, but when people ask they are doing the inverse question: what do I need to change in a cost effective way so the price of my property is higher. Sometimes it's not even a matter of investment but problems with the listing.
It's absolutely false that nothing other than objective market valuation sets the price of deals. People are remarkably emotional compared to what they think of themselves and decisions are always ultimately emotional, even when they are backed by reason.
I honestly think that these little "impression" based things do not make as much difference to the price as people assume. They maybe get more people through the door, which is not for nothing. But I don't think they really change peoples internal sense of value dramatically.
U must be joking. The impression is everything.
New builds in the UK are being built dirt cheap and fast..... Some developments are disgraceful. But it's new, it's clean and it's sold at a premium based on that
>The impression is everything.
People who say "the impression is everything" never really mean it, as you quickly discover when they are confronted by well put together properties with damp, Japanese knotweed, massive ground rents or factoring charges, or cladding problems.
The majority of people aren't builders and have no idea about properties other than the way that they look. White walls and nice sofas can definitely sell a house to a pair of naive buyers. It's the wild west.
>why is this house not selling for the asking price, when the house next door sold at the same price, really quickly?
Because it's grey, Linda. You painted every room grey, layered with grey furniture, and even your Live, Laugh, Love vinyl is in different shades of grey. When I try to imagine myself living in it, all I see is Schindler's List.
Do you genuinely think people are so unimaginative? Other people's decor doesn't put me off buying a house tbh...
I suppose if it was a new build, but even then I'd expect I'd be upgrading and therefore changing stuff.
People really are that unimaginative, I'd say the majority can't see past the decor most of the time.
You'd be surprised how often we leave really old fashioned, unclean, or outright nasty carpets in properties that we clear because bare floorboards put most buyers brains into meltdown. They can't picture how this "wreck" will become a habitable property after the carpet fitters have been in for the day.
The house we rented in my 3rd and 4th years of uni was a fucking tip when we went to look round it. It made choosing it actually quite difficult, despite the fact it was by far the largest, cheapest, and best located house we had found so far. The first impression was just so bad with shoes covering 80% of the entry hallway, dirty old towels in random piles around the house, incredible amounts of mess, old food containers all over the kitchen and lounge, and the bath/shower curtain made my clean freak housemate itch.
I’m glad we managed to see past that in the end though, as it was a great house and have some fantastic memories there. It was also nice to have a load of space during the lockdowns so we weren’t constantly in each other’s hair.
people are unimaginative. No doubt about it. There's not many that can picture it other than what they see... which is why they tell you to dress the house to sell.
I've never got the whole "buy an immaculate house that doesn't need any work" thing. If I'm buying a house, I want to make it my own. If I want something immaculate but impersonal, I'd go for a good quality rental property.
I think the challenge is cost. If you spend every last penny on your mortgage or on a property with extra space, then you don't have that money to spend at Habitat/Laura Ashley/Glasswells. If it's good to go, then you can at least wait a year or two before you start redesigning everything to your taste.
It's not just cost but time and effort too. My wife and I both work full time and have two kids under five. Spare time and energy and rare enough as it is I don't want to have to immediately spend all of it renovating a house as soon as we move in.
This is why I always say to the Mrs for us to get the best furniture possible, as it’s one expense we’ll take with us and does a huge amount of work in making your house look better for a sale.
There’s an auction place called John Pye that does ex-display stuff from Soho Home, Loaf and Nkuku (plus lots of others across many categories) that I spent about £10k at, picking up furniture that has a collective RRP of over £80k. You might have a small scuff on a few things, but you’ll get that anyway, especially with kids, and it’s a lot more palatable if something does happen in future when you’ve paid Ikea prices.
For me it's the effort that comes with making big decisions! For example, I've never had a carpet refitted, how does that work? Who do I call? what carpet do I choose? How long will it take? Where would we put all the furniture? And yes, how much will it cost? Am I being swindled?
I grew up in rental houses/flats, moving every 4-5 years so I've had zero exposure to this stuff. I have a toddler, a baby, a full-time job, figuring things out takes time and effort. I would rather move into something that needs nothing done.
Also I learnt the hard way that in the UK there is no such thing. If it looks immaculate it hides a shitload of amateurish and butchery, homes-under-the-hammer style.
Yeah... if you are up for some renovating, buying something that *obviously* needs some TLC is a better deal. At least it's honest.
(Of course I'm not talking about proper issues like extensive damp or structural problems or leaky roofs or whatever)
Best part of £100 by the time you've got all the prep stuff - sandpaper, filler, any new brushes, brush cleaner, any other paint you might need (gloss/ wood). If you need to strip wallpaper etc add a day on.
Just in process of repainting our office at work. 3.6mx12m space with 3 internal doors. Paint was £450+vat from dulux and decorator wants a clear week to do it.
My wife is the same, as long as a house was physically sound she didn't care what the inside was like because she wanted to redecorate immediately so I completely get where you're coming from
I do too, but I also really bloody hate working round everything when redecorating. It's not so bad if you're buying whilst living in rented and can afford a decent overlap to allow for cleaning, decorating before moving everything in, and any DIY work. Or when you have no kids or pets that want to paw freshly painted walls, and you don't need to try and create safe areas when all your furniture is shoved in one room so you can do everything needed as fast as you can.
Yes. We removed a sofa (one of two), bookshelf and desk from a room that people were repeatedly saying couldn't fit a dining table...added a dining table...suddenly...oh look, it can fit a dining table!
Before we tried to sell our house I would have agreed with you, I have since revised my estimate of people's ability to visualise anything! 🤣
Honestly I had a hard time believing this too, until I started house searching with my partner. The number of times I’ve had to say “judge the house, not the decor!” has been… surprising. But I’ve been super into interior design for my whole life, and lived in ten homes across three continents in twenty years, and he started thinking about this stuff five minutes ago.
This was common on House Hunters. "Well the house is great, has the large garden we want, has plenty of space and storage, is in a great location close to a great school and is $50k under our budget, but the third bedroom is painted a colour I don't like so we turned it down."
My husband refused to come and see the house that we now own based on the pictures. I snuck it onto one of our estate agent trips to this town because I'm of the opinion you should see everything just in case. He wanted to make an offer quicker than I did after looking round.
If I see a house that’s shabby, I subtract the cost of renovating. If a house is ok-ish, I plan to renovate in five year’s time.
And then there’s the middle ground, the house that’s been renovated to a technically high standard but which is so ugly that I’d fall into a deep depression living there, but I’d struggle to tear out perfectly good fixtures and paint over £40/roll wallpaper ‘just’ because I hate it and the sellers, having poured £25K into renovations, want their money back.
I mean, technically it IS price, but not just.
Same with AstroTurf and paved or gravelled gardens. There was one house I did not want to buy because the back garden was gravel, and there was no access other than through the living room and kitchen, and the thought of wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of gravel going out that way (and then along a footpath) before you could dump it was enough to say ‘no’. I could not have paid for that to happen, or to replace the living room carpet afterwards.
I had a couple come see my house and reject it as they couldnt see where a corner sofa would fit. There was loads of room and would've fit in easily in more than one orienation, but they couldn't see beyond my straight 3 seater.
Yes, it's the new magnolia, except magnolia had warmth. They are so depressing and cold, especially the 'property developer' specials. Huge turn off, people trying to make money painting everything bloody gray. Almost makes me angry.
There's a house in the area we're looking to move to that is not only completely grey on the inside (apart from black radiators!), they also spray painted the red brick on the outside grey. It's now listed with 3 different EAs and still hasn't sold after 4-5 months
I do wonder about this sonetimes - the electrics etc are potentially more safe than in a house not touched since 1980, and even if the kitchen is grey I wouldn't have to replace it too quickly. On the other hand, I've seen Homes Under The Hammer.
I now realise why my mother was so fucked off with me when I refused to take down my emo band posters when they were selling our house during my teenage years.
We're currently looking at buying a Grade 2 listed building (built in the 1840s) and someone "renovated" it by making every room grey. Literally every (apart from the ones they didn't get a chance to finish).
They paid £160k for it in 2021, but want £500k for it now. I cannot bring myself to pay more than £350k but I cannot imagine they will accept that offer.
To be fair a house close to me that didn't sell, had hot pink gloss skirting boards and trim, bright tropical floral wallpaper throughout. Neutral is far easier to personalise
that is also priced in
buyers will price in how much will it take to change it to their liking in terms of time and money
the counterpoint is that something could be selling at a higher price if it's commensurately more desirable to more people in the market at that point
But I bought it in lockdown for 400 and did 50 grand of work on it so it must be worth 600 now. The price is right, it's just the market that is wrong. Why can't they see I deserve to get paid? Why must they vex me so?
> But I bought it in lockdown for 400 and did 50 grand of work on it so it must be worth 600 now. The price is right, it's just the market that is wrong.
This argument - aka loss aversion - is actually a significant part of prospect theory, which won a nobel prize in economics for Kahneman (& Tversky*).
Put simply people hate to lose more than they like to win, so there is an s-shaped curve of irrationality in our internal valuations where they are affected by our perceptions of gain and loss.
Look, I have been greatly enjoying my snobby, judgemental look at other people’s houses.
Me: “Oh dear. Couldn’t mow the front lawn?
Grey? How original.
More grey Janice?
Kitchen’s a bit small. Cupboards look a bit greasy.
That’s not a bedroom, you crumpet.
Floor plan is a nightmare.
You want how much?”
😂
I mean, no. It is indeed true that if you lower the price enough, any house (no matter how badly presented) will sell — but what people are actually asking is whether there is something wrong with the listing or the presentation of the property that is causing people who would otherwise pay a certain price (e.g. near asking price) to look elsewhere. Duh.
Buyers are not always rational. If a place is listed for £400K but the photos reveal horrific and filthy carpeting everywhere that would cost £2K to replace with something nice, it is not likely that lowering the asking price by even £3K would attract buyers — people will just skip over it because it looks horrible. They may also wonder whether the poor presentation may hide other more serious problems caused by the vendor's neglect. It very well could be that in order to attract a buyer, you would either need to lower the asking price by (e.g.) £20K before people are even willing to look at it, ***or*** spend just £2K cleaning the place up. In this hypothetical scenario, that's a difference of £18K; so it's true that the answer is, at some level, price, but it is not always true that just lowering the price until you get interest is the wisest course of action.
It very well may be that there is something that should be done to the house or the listing that would give you access to a market that you have closed yourself off from (e.g. the market of buyers who do not want a place that looks like hell, easily fixable or not).
When people ask why their house is not selling, they are obviously asking whether there is something like this that they could do. You can be so accustomed to your own decor that you might not realise it is so hideous that people will not consider it at all, even if the cost to improve it is relatively low. In that case, it would be better to fix the presentation than to lower the price.
Another thing: I've seen so many listings where the photos clearly show that people are still living there and no effort has been made whatsoever to prepare the house for sale. When I see this, I read between the lines and conclude that the vendor is not serious and it may be risky to even get involved in a potential sale with them. So if (e.g.) your listing shows photos of unmade beds and nests of wires connected to laptops and unwashed pots in the sink, you might be missing out on a huge swathe of buyers who would be attracted not by a discount but by you giving the appearance of being actually ready to sell the damn property and move on.
Price is just a social construct.
The question should be 'how can I make this property more attractive' and then the answer isn't always 'price' but sometimes 'paint your goth room in neutral light colours' or 'have a tidy up before you have photos retaken', etc.
Yeah, simply saying "PRICE!" isn't particularly helpful. Like, yeah... obviously. But some of the posts I see on here have glaringly obvious issues with the listings that could be easily fixed and would lead to a lot more interest. Things like listings missing a floorplan, or not having photos of all the rooms, or the property having photos that make it look messy/dirty/depressing/haunted. Everyone likes to imagine that they can see past these things when they're buying, but the reality is they don't and looking through Rightmove/Zoopla is exhausting. I spent the best part of a year looking for a property - when you are trawling through 10-20 new listings a day, the ones that don't capture your interest quickly fade away into non-existence. I wouldn't even look at listings that hadn't been added/reduced in the last 2 weeks - my assumption being that anything which hasn't already been offered on is overpriced or has something wrong with it. That's the reality of the situation. Yes, lowering the price will garner interest and you'll eventually hit a price where it is guaranteed to sell. But drumming up interest and momentum in the first place requires a good listing.
I think this is really missing the point. Obviously everyone knows that the house would sell for £1. The question they're implicitly asking is 'why isn't it selling for this price'.
Now the answer may be that it is simply priced out of the area / size / whatever. But it could also be that a small investment in, say, redecorating a room / taking better photos / tidying up / doing the garden etc etc etc might increase the price at which the property will sell for significantly.
Yeah, I agree. People can go “house blind” and think everyone will feel the same about their decor. They also might not realise the factors putting people off or how few people are in the categories that they’re hoping to sell to (rich, child-free bohemians, lots of cats and love the colour purple, not worried about damp and would consider next door to an equestrian facility an enormous plus).
Sometimes what people are actually asking is “why is this house not worth as much as I think it is?” Obvious to an independent bystander but maybe not so much if you’ve happily lived there for 5 years.
Aside from the rich part, I think you just described me... I bought a house with damp issues (now fixed), have two cats but would have more if I had the money, have just painted my only bedroom a deep berry purple, and I'd love to have ponies as neighbours!
People also forget the _cash_ impact to buyers.
Assume FTB:
House is 400k but only worth 350k, buyer has a budget of 400k at 90% LTV. "But why don't they offer 350 and do it up with the extra 50k?"
Because they don't have, and possibly can't get, the extra 50k. Borrowing the 50k as part of the mortgage only requires 5k cash. If it's worth 400k the bank will value it as such and will lend on it. If it's worth 50k less they have to find another way to finance the £45k gap to get it to the standard at which it's been priced.
It comes down to cash. It's always cash.
This is so true. A bit like people who say just buy a fixer upper to get on the ladder! Thats great if it is just cosmetic stuff. When you have a condemned boiler, windows near falling out and a fuse board that was fitted when dinosaurs roamed the earth you need cash now.
We spent £20k just after buying and people who hadn't visited before thought we had done nothing to the place based on photos. We could do the decor stuff more slowly and the place was ultimately a bargain but we couldn't have bought it without sufficient cash on top of our deposit.
Exactly. I've felt like clawing my own eyeballs out these past couple of years trying to explain to (well meaning) people why we haven't been able to buy yet and why the £200,000 house they just found on an auction site is not cheap. We literally don't have the cash for it.
"Just do it up and flip it".
No, staggeringly, that would still involve paying for it first.
Very good point and I feel it will remain unanswered !
Why viewers are not low-balling?
What do they have to lose?
They learn price BEFORE viewing, not AFTER. Why do they come at all?
Let's say a house is up for £500k.
But is really only 'worth' £400k.
A seller wonders why prospective buyers don't just make a low offer.
Because buyers with £500k to spend don't want to buy a house for £400k. They want to spend all of their £500k.
Buyers with only £400k to spend probably aren't viewing a house listed for £500k
I don't think this is quite right, (unless your being literally e.g. 20% markup) but when I was buying my current property I looked at 50k over budget and tried to negotiate down. We found about 20 suitable properties and offered on all of them only 4 accepted offers then we down selected to one based on location. Speaking with friends it seems this is common.
The biggest trouble is people who don't entertain an offer 50k less (even when their house has been on market for 7months)
It is always price!
I'd say the exception is for leasehold flats. Where often things don't sell because the agent / seller isn't forthcoming enough to put the lease details (service fees, length of lease) on the listing and it puts off potential buyers instantly who assume red flags / can't be bothered to go through the pain of ringing up the agent to find out (where inevitably whoever picks up the phone won't know the answer either).
I stopped calling after the 5th one as they were clearly always being hidden on purpose and were extortionate.
You could also typically tell if you're familiar with the market as they are priced about 20k lower than they would be if it had a reasonable service charge.
I'm staying far away from leasehold now. I had an offer accepted on a flat, it was advised that the service fees were 1250 a year. I thought it was quite high for something with no additional amenities but it was in a great location and something I could afford.
I start the process, solicitors go through the documents and flag up that the actual service charge is 4k. Apparently some company had acquired the building, converted it into a bunch of flats and added 75% discount for 5 years to help sell them. The discount was due to expire in about 6 months which is why the seller was trying to get rid of it.
Lost a couple hundred pounds because I had to pay for the work that was already completed but that was the better option than being stuck with 4k annual fees.
Its a nightmare. I viewed a flat, asked about the ground rent and told the agent if it's one that doubles I would not buy. He told me that there was no such clause. A month in the solicitor tells me the rent is about to double and when I tell the agent I'm pulling out, the poor couple who are desperate to sell offer to drop the price. The agent wasted my time and theirs by not just putting the lease terms in the ad.
I dodged a bullet though, the building had cladding and no EWS1.
And then the poster will say some kind of variation of:
“But I paid £200k in 2014 therefore why shouldn’t I get £800k? That’s what the market was two years ago”
Sometimes the decor isn’t great or the garden is poorly maintained and it’s hard for people to imagine living somewhere that looks ugly. If it’s cheap enough it will still go, but just painting the walls and tidying up can help
Best post ever!
Recently heard a story where a seller said they "didnt want to give the house away" as a reason they wouldnt accept an offer £10k under asking.
A house (and everything) is only worth what people will pay for it.
Regardless of how amazing it might be
Made an offer on a house. 8% under.
Yet 10k more than what the joined house nextdoor went for a year earlier. Same spec. Same age, same layout. The are was new and just starting to appreciate in value.
Took them a week to decide and said no.
Fair enough we carry on looking elsewhere. A week goes by and my partner asked if I'd be willing to go a few more % on that house as well did like it. Thought sure but I'd like another viewing.
Call up the estate agents. They tell us it's under offer so no viewing.
Fair enough.
For the next month that house is not updated to STC on any of the websites.
I call from a different number out of curiosity and get told yes we can get a viewing. Said no thanks.
A week later we get a call from the estate agents. Apparently the "offer" fell through and would our offer still be valid?
Fuck no. It's been a month. That house is still not under offer...
Those people lost out on a quick sale because they wanted what the estate agent promised them in price...
I expect they will drop the price soon by 25k
If you actually like the place, why not offer the same price as the house next door went for with exactly that justification? They might well be starting to appreciate a buyer who's actually planning on going through with it, and you've already demonstrated actual interest.
Na they had their chance. They have already shown they are willing to lie when it suits them. Why would I trust someone like that? Maybe they learn from it. maybe they don't. I am not going to fuck around and hope they have.
in the time as they were fucking around we found another house. closer to my partner's job, a better area, a bigger house that is more our style, it doesn't require any work AND the seller is motivated.
Agree! We are currently searching for a house to buy and whenever we turn up for a viewing we are almost always disappointed at how much smaller the house / garden looks in "real life". It is so off-putting. Now, when looking online at houses we automatically assume everything is midget sized to avoid disappointment.
I think every interior photo should have someone in the room just to give a sense of scale. But then EAs will start hiring very short people so the room looks bigger....
And you can see the wide angle lens effect in many photos. In one a doorway will look wide enough to drive a car through. Another photo from a different angle and its just a standard doorway.
Yeah I just go by floor plan. Yes you lack some context but on the plus side it's just clear hard numbers and a 3.2m wide living room is a 3.2m wide living room, no lens angles involved.
On the continent, the standard practice is to have stats and price by square footage . Their rightmoves have filters for it since no one will take a listing seriously if there’s no floorpan provided.
Avoids the 4 bedroom Except the 4th one is a closet problem
Being from the continent, yeah, don't remind me, it's my number one pet peeve with UK listings. Both for rentals and for buying btw - it's quite nice to see a floor plan when you're renting too.
We looked at one that actually looked a lot better in real life. The only problem with that is that once you're home, you start doubting yourself because the only thing you're left with are the pictures which look shit...
In getting viewings they are quite effective I think - to what extent this actually translates into sadness that wouldn't otherwise have happened is another question.
This post or and identical one is in this sub fairly regularly and it misses some key points. Some types of houses just take longer to sell, especially if you need a specific type of a buyer in an area that isn’t a major city
Sure but it misses the point, doesn’t it. Like it’s not useful to know any house will sell for £1 - most of us need to get a fair price for our houses because most of us aren’t millionaires
Also important: consider whether it is a buyer’s market or a seller’s market at the time. Right now it is a **buyer’s** market. More properties available than buyers willing to bite. Even so, right-priced properties will still sell very quickly due to high demand.
In a seller’s market, there is a higher likelihood of bidding wars, offers above asking price etc than in a buyer’s market.
Interested to see if the base rate reduction in autumn changes that!
This is boring and also…obvious. People know that ultimately price will determine whether a house sells. You could sell a pile of bricks by the side of the road for the right price.
A lot of questions people are asking are about the UNDERLYING reason why something might not be selling. There is literally a post from a few hours ago where someone has asked and another has pointed out that the schooling options aren’t great….which that person may not have really thought about. Should everyone instead just respond “it’s the price” like a lemming?
I never posted my house on here.. But when we put ours on the market I only had 2 viewings in the first two months and someone was teing me it was the price... We accepted an offer 5k under asking a short while after. So it wasn't the price at all. Op probably lives in a busy area, where employment rates are high and there is a healthy population of buyers. Literally miliions of us living in rural areas where the numbers of potential buyers are very small. So just because you don't sell in a month or two doesn't mean it's overpriced, it just means there hasn't been a long enough opportunity to find a buyer who is in a proceedable position.
If price was the only factor - then literally everyone would just sell at auction and be done with it.
When people talk about price, it is in that moment in time. Yes you could wait 6 months for the perfect buyer to come along, but in the present, that buyer doesn’t exist yet. So in the current time, the price isn’t right for your potential buyers.
Also... Would bet a lot that op and a lot of people agreeing have never sold a house either. Which in my experience is considerably more stressful than buying. Its easy on the Internet to write off 20k plus of other peoples money. But no one on these reddit threads has viewed the properties in question and can honestly truely make that call. Not to mention the intimate local knowledge really required to value a house correctly.
I agree - people need to understand why it isn't worth what they think it is. Maybe because the area isn't good, the bedrooms are tiny, there's damp, they're not advertising it right, etc.
Also, staging can actually help a bit otherwise rich people wouldn't hire companies to do it. It makes the property a clean, inoffensive space that people can imagine moving into.
the lemmings are here!. what is wrong with people wanting to understand the drivers of price in the market and what buyers will value? Especially if you don’t understand why one house might have sold and another didn’t? The actual underlying reason of course, not just “hurr durr price”
That's not strictly true - for people with kids this could well be a 'I won't buy that at whatever price' deal breaker. I recently bought my first place and I wouldn't even have viewed a property with only bad schools nearby, regardless of price, because I didn't want to willingly walk into 7 years at a bad secondary for my kid.
A buyer without kids might buy it for the lower price though.
We saw some places like that during our search. Questionable areas which we thought we could have overlooked if the price had been low enough. But in reality it would have to be so low the seller would never consider it because we didn’t value the house at all. On reflection you probably couldn’t lower the price enough to make us offer on it. So price was indeed not the issue
> here is literally a post from a few hours ago where someone has asked and another has pointed out that the schooling options aren’t great….which that person may not have really thought about.
The seller assumed there was a school related factor to the price, but there isn't unfortunately. You need to price this house lower.
EDIT: I hope the OOP realised this, and then reconsiders who they want to market the house to.
It's not always the price.
It's also a location,parks, school, shops, commute etc.
Also, a right time. . For example don't sell in the winter, especially in the Christmas time.
Sometimes you just need to wait.
>It's also a location,parks, school, shops, commute etc. Also, a right time.
Indeed. You sell a property in poorer location than comparatives at a lower price. You sell properties next to the best schools at a higher price. You sell a property close to a station or facilities higher. If you need to sell in a recession you won't get as much for your home.
Yes - it's always price!
I will say an exception for this is amenities. If you’ve priced it higher make sure you include **all** of the amenities. Think about what a basic home has, and then compare to your own home
Do you have a utility room? AMENITY
Do you have space for a dishwasher? AMENITY
Have space for an American fridge/freezer? AMENITY
Do you have a pantry? AMENITY
Also I noticed a common theme in the "but this house sold for xx and mine is waaay better" in which case the answer is usually, yours isn't as good as you think, and there's about two hours close by which are better and cheaper.
A clean, tidy well presented house with neutral colours, fresh paint and well laid out furniture will typically sell for substantially more (and have a lot more hits/viewings) than the alternative.
People browsing will think “that looks nice” and click. People will have an instant impression of the house being well maintained, which may not even be matched to the reality. If the paint is not fresh and there are signs of dirtiness/poor repair, people will assume that goes deeper and is a sign that the property has not been well maintained. Botched DIY or signals that the owner is not house proud would instantly make me move on unless the house was significantly cheaper than otherwise.
Things that attract me to a property are things like light, good space, useful rooms and nice features. Those are much easier to appreciate when they are highlighted than when you are trying to look through poor design choices. Even just the light in a room can be entirely changed, and people will move on from a property on that basis. There is a reason why people stage their homes for sale, it can make a really substantial difference to the impression.
“Has potential”
Means, I want to sell at the price I think it’s worth after YOU repair, modernise and renovate.
“4 bedroom”
4th bedroom is either a cupboard, illegal loft conversion or downstairs dining room.
“Highly desired area”
Nice area, but is a complete gut job with 70s decor. However, a house on my road which sold for £600k and is in perfect condition sold for that and so I expect the same.
Not enough photos of taps…. Seemingly taps are a big selling point. Why the hell do estate agents love taps so much?!?
“Not only does the house have sinks but it’s actually got taps above them”!!!!
Yep, I allowed the estate agents to market it for more than I thought it was worth.
I dropped it to what I thought was a fair price within 2 weeks, I got 4 offers.
They are right. It is ALWAYS price.
As someone who works in the property pricing industry… correct.
“but I spent x amount re-doing/renovating etc etc I put in SO much work to bring up the value”
Truth is, it’s worth what people are prepared to pay. Pure and simple.
No its not. Sometimes the number of people wanting to live in a given house - regardless of price - is tiny, but the number of properties available are also tiny.
Sometimes you just have to be on the market long enough to let the two connect.
My question is how soon to reduce…
I need a quick ish sale due to on onward purchase
My house went up for sale on Wednesday, 3 viewings this weekend - no feedback of offers yet, I appreciate it’s early days but I want to move quickly
£375k is the asking price - how soon to reduce and what to? It’s a fair value for the road, if not slightly high, so I would hope that it could encourage some similar or slightly lower offers
It depends on the price compared to other houses currently for sale and recent sold prices. If you’re at the top end currently it may take longer to sell as people will think it may take time to sell and therefore view other properties. If it’s a bargain based on the stock available then it should sell quickly.
Be realistic as to its value, if looks like it needs money to be spent on it expect it to hang round for a bit.
It’s a conversation with the agent as it does depend on local market conditions and competition. If the market is busy, I’d take the approach of valuing it low with the aim of getting a bid off going. For example if £330k makes it a steal, have the agent list it at that and try to line most viewings up to happen on the weekend after the reduction with viewings back to back- so they see eachother as one exits and the other enters. Generate momentum and you stand a better chance of achieving £350-360k this way (if it’s worth that), than reducing from 375 to 350 for example in the right market.
My landlords flat has been for sale for nearly a year. I offered to buy but he said my offer was too low. It was severely overpriced, by at least 50k. In this whole time we've only had 1 viewing. He's reduced the price in 10k increments every few months. Still nothing. Still overpriced. Landlord doesn't realise his property isn't worth as much as he wants he's living in delulu land perpetuated by the estate agents who are intent on selling him a pipe dream. I still laugh at this idiotic property advisor that tried arguing with me that it was correctly priced based on other properties in the area. I said sure. Nearly 12 months later still waiting for him to prove me wrong.
Price is the biggest single factor, but not the only factor.
Layout, Clutter, furniture/decor, lack of downstairs toilet / garden etc etc are all things that impact whether or not people will put in an offer.
How quickly do you think the house will sell if we listed it at £1?
..and how quickly would it sell if we listed it at £1million?
The trick is to find the price between this two, where it sells (1) quickly, or (2) for the most money you can get, or (3) both.
But all three of those options are different prices. If you go for (2 - the most money), it will sell eventually, but you may have to wait years until all houses on the street are worth more. If you go for (3 - both) you have to be prepared to compromise, and you can’t compromise time, the only person who can do that is Dr Who.
There are exceptions. Things at the top of the market will always take longer to sell but doesn't mean you should cut the price of a £1m house to £600k because there are more buyers at that point.
I would add that while price is a key factor, there are some additional factors which I’ve seen in the comments and from my own (recent) experience:
* Condition of the house itself
* Colour the rooms are painted - Is it dull, vibrant or too much?
* Is the house cluttered? Can prospective buyers get an accurate estimate of the size of each room?
* Is the house in a clean state? Clean rooms, which have been recently vacuumed and dusted.
* If there is a garden, has it been managed and taken care of. We viewed a home where the stairs at the back were scary to walk down - hard no!
* Does the house look like a home? Furniture and every day goods actually add value (provided it’s not cluttered). We saw empty houses and ones where the owner / tenant was actively living in it, and the latter was more appealing on the eye.
We did our best to make our current apartment, where we are the tenants, clean and dusted. We did our best to get rid of things we no longer needed (charity, giving away to friends, and the good old trash), and to organise things to maximise how tidy the place looked. I optimised to keep the kitchen looking as open and removed items from the counters wherever possible (even tho it meant I’d have to give away the tea collection I had accrued).
The landlord priced our 2bedroom, share of freehold at just under £650k, which is really price-competitive and he got a potential buyer really quickly.
Price was a key factor I’d imagine as the potential buyer really wanted to live in this area but had previously been priced out.
We live in Earlsfield, London, and a lot of these areas are either leasehold or sold over £750k so we definitely were priced out.
He thought he’d need us to remove some of our things but the potential buyer really loved the home and she was able to get a real sense of how big the rooms are and what she can do with the space.
this! whenever i see people with post on my house isnt selling, why. I always thought, either your house have some sht going on and you are hiding it or your price is inflated so much that just no one willing to pay. REDUCE THE PRICE YOU GREEDY FK.
"But i will lose money\~" well, thats just the price you paid for buying it in a inflated price and want to profit it with a even more inflated price
"Houses are too expensive" is an easy explanation, but it's not a complete one.
If people think it's overpriced they will offer under.
But where is the blockage in the funnel? Is the property not marketed at the right audience? Are the pictures terrible? Is the real estate agency useless?
Price is a very easy lever to pull and an explanation we all love, but it's not always right.
I just went to view a house this morning. Its lovely on the outside from the front, absolutely gorgeous, but as soon as you step in its miserable grey with cheap GREY laminate flooring and a greasy grey kitchen, and the back lawn needs mowing. It would sell at asking price if they changed those couple of things.
Having looked at several hundred houses on Rightmove it’s because:-
You didn’t stage the photos… your junk is still everywhere
You have no sense of colour, every room like a fkn kaleidoscope
You covered every wall in wallpaper… not going to remove that!
Your back garden is a fkn mess
Your neighbours gardens are a mess… who wants those neighbours
The housing market in the UK is bonkers...
Saw a 4 bed detached family home... Nothing special not small but now like WOW in an area that has commuting distance to Cambridge (V popular at the moment)... £800k.
I did the maths... there are two up two down semi-detached houses in the same area for £250k that are together exactly the same footprint...
That's an extra £300k for what!? Literally nothing... at this point you're better off buying a row of terrace houses or semi's knocking the walls down between them and turning them into a family home than buying off the middle class easy gens that got rinsed by the boomers in 08 and are now trying to pull the same stunts on us. GTFO.
Housing collapse imminent.
Markets are really not that hard to understand lolz get rid of any preconceived narrative about what YOU think its worth and look for evidence of what the market thinks its worth.
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Yes lots of different things affect the price. OP thinks they have discovered some kind of secret here. People post on Reddit because they don't know why it hasn't sold at the price asked...... Here we can let them know. -your house is painted brown -take the moped out of the living room -put some furniture in. There's shit on the wall. Etc etc Lots of different solutions to achieving the price they want..... Not just lowering it when it doesn't sell.
I mean... OP is right but in a completely reversed logic fashion, so the implication is wrong. Yep, price can compensate for almost anything in a given market, but when people ask they are doing the inverse question: what do I need to change in a cost effective way so the price of my property is higher. Sometimes it's not even a matter of investment but problems with the listing. It's absolutely false that nothing other than objective market valuation sets the price of deals. People are remarkably emotional compared to what they think of themselves and decisions are always ultimately emotional, even when they are backed by reason.
I honestly think that these little "impression" based things do not make as much difference to the price as people assume. They maybe get more people through the door, which is not for nothing. But I don't think they really change peoples internal sense of value dramatically.
U must be joking. The impression is everything. New builds in the UK are being built dirt cheap and fast..... Some developments are disgraceful. But it's new, it's clean and it's sold at a premium based on that
>The impression is everything. People who say "the impression is everything" never really mean it, as you quickly discover when they are confronted by well put together properties with damp, Japanese knotweed, massive ground rents or factoring charges, or cladding problems.
The majority of people aren't builders and have no idea about properties other than the way that they look. White walls and nice sofas can definitely sell a house to a pair of naive buyers. It's the wild west.
>why is this house not selling for the asking price, when the house next door sold at the same price, really quickly? Because it's grey, Linda. You painted every room grey, layered with grey furniture, and even your Live, Laugh, Love vinyl is in different shades of grey. When I try to imagine myself living in it, all I see is Schindler's List.
Fifty Shades of Schindler's List.
That's a challenging wank.
But not impossible
Challenge accepted?
We talking or we racing?
We masturbating.
This is why I love Reddit
RIP Sean
phahaha
Rip sean
This made me absolutely howl with laughter. Good work.
Do you genuinely think people are so unimaginative? Other people's decor doesn't put me off buying a house tbh... I suppose if it was a new build, but even then I'd expect I'd be upgrading and therefore changing stuff.
People really are that unimaginative, I'd say the majority can't see past the decor most of the time. You'd be surprised how often we leave really old fashioned, unclean, or outright nasty carpets in properties that we clear because bare floorboards put most buyers brains into meltdown. They can't picture how this "wreck" will become a habitable property after the carpet fitters have been in for the day.
The house we rented in my 3rd and 4th years of uni was a fucking tip when we went to look round it. It made choosing it actually quite difficult, despite the fact it was by far the largest, cheapest, and best located house we had found so far. The first impression was just so bad with shoes covering 80% of the entry hallway, dirty old towels in random piles around the house, incredible amounts of mess, old food containers all over the kitchen and lounge, and the bath/shower curtain made my clean freak housemate itch. I’m glad we managed to see past that in the end though, as it was a great house and have some fantastic memories there. It was also nice to have a load of space during the lockdowns so we weren’t constantly in each other’s hair.
Which is weird as I love a beautifully renovated hardwooden floor.
The important words there being "beautifully renovated" not "scabby, splintered pine floorboards with carpet treads along the walls"
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Most floorboards really aren't suited to being wooden floors though
people are unimaginative. No doubt about it. There's not many that can picture it other than what they see... which is why they tell you to dress the house to sell.
Lots of people scroll past houses that require any amount of work doing to them, so yes, I do believe it.
I've never got the whole "buy an immaculate house that doesn't need any work" thing. If I'm buying a house, I want to make it my own. If I want something immaculate but impersonal, I'd go for a good quality rental property.
I think the challenge is cost. If you spend every last penny on your mortgage or on a property with extra space, then you don't have that money to spend at Habitat/Laura Ashley/Glasswells. If it's good to go, then you can at least wait a year or two before you start redesigning everything to your taste.
It's not just cost but time and effort too. My wife and I both work full time and have two kids under five. Spare time and energy and rare enough as it is I don't want to have to immediately spend all of it renovating a house as soon as we move in.
This is why I always say to the Mrs for us to get the best furniture possible, as it’s one expense we’ll take with us and does a huge amount of work in making your house look better for a sale. There’s an auction place called John Pye that does ex-display stuff from Soho Home, Loaf and Nkuku (plus lots of others across many categories) that I spent about £10k at, picking up furniture that has a collective RRP of over £80k. You might have a small scuff on a few things, but you’ll get that anyway, especially with kids, and it’s a lot more palatable if something does happen in future when you’ve paid Ikea prices.
For me it's the effort that comes with making big decisions! For example, I've never had a carpet refitted, how does that work? Who do I call? what carpet do I choose? How long will it take? Where would we put all the furniture? And yes, how much will it cost? Am I being swindled? I grew up in rental houses/flats, moving every 4-5 years so I've had zero exposure to this stuff. I have a toddler, a baby, a full-time job, figuring things out takes time and effort. I would rather move into something that needs nothing done.
Also I learnt the hard way that in the UK there is no such thing. If it looks immaculate it hides a shitload of amateurish and butchery, homes-under-the-hammer style.
Yeah... if you are up for some renovating, buying something that *obviously* needs some TLC is a better deal. At least it's honest. (Of course I'm not talking about proper issues like extensive damp or structural problems or leaky roofs or whatever)
I didn't say other people are. I said I am. Imagination, home decor and humour all go right over my head. You folks can do what you want.
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Absolutely. There's a balance to be had. Tart ot up a little then you don't have to drop the price so much
This is why new builds sell so well - people don’t want the hassle and stress of having to ‘do up’ a house and who can really blame them?
It costs 50 quid and two days work to paint a room.
> It costs 50 quid and two days work to paint a room. Paint may have gone up since you last looked.
Big tub of Wickes trade is 20 quid. If you are tidying a place up to sell it's perfect. Otherwise two tins of coloured emulsion would be 50 quid.
Best part of £100 by the time you've got all the prep stuff - sandpaper, filler, any new brushes, brush cleaner, any other paint you might need (gloss/ wood). If you need to strip wallpaper etc add a day on.
Just in process of repainting our office at work. 3.6mx12m space with 3 internal doors. Paint was £450+vat from dulux and decorator wants a clear week to do it.
Some people may not have the money or time to immediately redecorate after buying, a house that needs minimal, or no, redecoration can be enticing
Yeah fair point, I like to look at shit holes and imagine what I'd do with em tbf, looks like plenty of people would be put off based on replies
My wife is the same, as long as a house was physically sound she didn't care what the inside was like because she wanted to redecorate immediately so I completely get where you're coming from
I do too, but I also really bloody hate working round everything when redecorating. It's not so bad if you're buying whilst living in rented and can afford a decent overlap to allow for cleaning, decorating before moving everything in, and any DIY work. Or when you have no kids or pets that want to paw freshly painted walls, and you don't need to try and create safe areas when all your furniture is shoved in one room so you can do everything needed as fast as you can.
Yes. We removed a sofa (one of two), bookshelf and desk from a room that people were repeatedly saying couldn't fit a dining table...added a dining table...suddenly...oh look, it can fit a dining table! Before we tried to sell our house I would have agreed with you, I have since revised my estimate of people's ability to visualise anything! 🤣
Honestly I had a hard time believing this too, until I started house searching with my partner. The number of times I’ve had to say “judge the house, not the decor!” has been… surprising. But I’ve been super into interior design for my whole life, and lived in ten homes across three continents in twenty years, and he started thinking about this stuff five minutes ago.
Other top tip - judge a room's size by the ceiling, not the floor. The floor has stuff on it, the ceiling doesn't.
This was common on House Hunters. "Well the house is great, has the large garden we want, has plenty of space and storage, is in a great location close to a great school and is $50k under our budget, but the third bedroom is painted a colour I don't like so we turned it down."
(Screams in sixth month of new house search)
https://img.izismile.com/img/img10/20171209/640/house_hunters_memes_are_as_annoying_and_hilarious_as_the_show_itself_640_26.jpg
My husband refused to come and see the house that we now own based on the pictures. I snuck it onto one of our estate agent trips to this town because I'm of the opinion you should see everything just in case. He wanted to make an offer quicker than I did after looking round.
If I see a house that’s shabby, I subtract the cost of renovating. If a house is ok-ish, I plan to renovate in five year’s time. And then there’s the middle ground, the house that’s been renovated to a technically high standard but which is so ugly that I’d fall into a deep depression living there, but I’d struggle to tear out perfectly good fixtures and paint over £40/roll wallpaper ‘just’ because I hate it and the sellers, having poured £25K into renovations, want their money back. I mean, technically it IS price, but not just. Same with AstroTurf and paved or gravelled gardens. There was one house I did not want to buy because the back garden was gravel, and there was no access other than through the living room and kitchen, and the thought of wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of gravel going out that way (and then along a footpath) before you could dump it was enough to say ‘no’. I could not have paid for that to happen, or to replace the living room carpet afterwards.
I had a couple come see my house and reject it as they couldnt see where a corner sofa would fit. There was loads of room and would've fit in easily in more than one orienation, but they couldn't see beyond my straight 3 seater.
I love bright colours in homes but neutral colours do still generally sell for more
Yes, it's the new magnolia, except magnolia had warmth. They are so depressing and cold, especially the 'property developer' specials. Huge turn off, people trying to make money painting everything bloody gray. Almost makes me angry.
There's a house in the area we're looking to move to that is not only completely grey on the inside (apart from black radiators!), they also spray painted the red brick on the outside grey. It's now listed with 3 different EAs and still hasn't sold after 4-5 months
Loads of grey interior places sold with the no chain, which are obvious property developer flips, which I automatically rule out.
I do wonder about this sonetimes - the electrics etc are potentially more safe than in a house not touched since 1980, and even if the kitchen is grey I wouldn't have to replace it too quickly. On the other hand, I've seen Homes Under The Hammer.
And that comes down to price. A grey house will sell, just at the right price.
Wtf is that decor, the grey scale and the tacky slogans?! Can someone defend decorating their house like that?
I now realise why my mother was so fucked off with me when I refused to take down my emo band posters when they were selling our house during my teenage years.
"B&M do not sell a product which is not on display somewhere in this home."
We're currently looking at buying a Grade 2 listed building (built in the 1840s) and someone "renovated" it by making every room grey. Literally every (apart from the ones they didn't get a chance to finish). They paid £160k for it in 2021, but want £500k for it now. I cannot bring myself to pay more than £350k but I cannot imagine they will accept that offer.
To be fair a house close to me that didn't sell, had hot pink gloss skirting boards and trim, bright tropical floral wallpaper throughout. Neutral is far easier to personalise
What is with the grey???? I suppose it's better than the early 2000 magnolia shade.
Post of the Day right here, folks! 🤣
that is also priced in buyers will price in how much will it take to change it to their liking in terms of time and money the counterpoint is that something could be selling at a higher price if it's commensurately more desirable to more people in the market at that point
You can decorate??? Houses don't go down in value because they've been painted grey.
Exactly, most people can't see past the grey because they have no imagination
Do you mean this one? [https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/148218428#/](https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/148218428#/)
Exactly. Even Fifty Shades had a red room.
But I bought it in lockdown for 400 and did 50 grand of work on it so it must be worth 600 now. The price is right, it's just the market that is wrong. Why can't they see I deserve to get paid? Why must they vex me so?
> But I bought it in lockdown for 400 and did 50 grand of work on it so it must be worth 600 now. The price is right, it's just the market that is wrong. This argument - aka loss aversion - is actually a significant part of prospect theory, which won a nobel prize in economics for Kahneman (& Tversky*). Put simply people hate to lose more than they like to win, so there is an s-shaped curve of irrationality in our internal valuations where they are affected by our perceptions of gain and loss.
To be fair if you were all in at 450 on a lockdown property it probably would be worth 600 now, prices went mental following COVID.
I meant to say 'during the stamp duty holiday' which of course is when I bought my house 🙀
Look, I have been greatly enjoying my snobby, judgemental look at other people’s houses. Me: “Oh dear. Couldn’t mow the front lawn? Grey? How original. More grey Janice? Kitchen’s a bit small. Cupboards look a bit greasy. That’s not a bedroom, you crumpet. Floor plan is a nightmare. You want how much?” 😂
But it has a bidet?
In that case double the price
Double? Triple!
Thrice the price
I mean, no. It is indeed true that if you lower the price enough, any house (no matter how badly presented) will sell — but what people are actually asking is whether there is something wrong with the listing or the presentation of the property that is causing people who would otherwise pay a certain price (e.g. near asking price) to look elsewhere. Duh. Buyers are not always rational. If a place is listed for £400K but the photos reveal horrific and filthy carpeting everywhere that would cost £2K to replace with something nice, it is not likely that lowering the asking price by even £3K would attract buyers — people will just skip over it because it looks horrible. They may also wonder whether the poor presentation may hide other more serious problems caused by the vendor's neglect. It very well could be that in order to attract a buyer, you would either need to lower the asking price by (e.g.) £20K before people are even willing to look at it, ***or*** spend just £2K cleaning the place up. In this hypothetical scenario, that's a difference of £18K; so it's true that the answer is, at some level, price, but it is not always true that just lowering the price until you get interest is the wisest course of action. It very well may be that there is something that should be done to the house or the listing that would give you access to a market that you have closed yourself off from (e.g. the market of buyers who do not want a place that looks like hell, easily fixable or not). When people ask why their house is not selling, they are obviously asking whether there is something like this that they could do. You can be so accustomed to your own decor that you might not realise it is so hideous that people will not consider it at all, even if the cost to improve it is relatively low. In that case, it would be better to fix the presentation than to lower the price. Another thing: I've seen so many listings where the photos clearly show that people are still living there and no effort has been made whatsoever to prepare the house for sale. When I see this, I read between the lines and conclude that the vendor is not serious and it may be risky to even get involved in a potential sale with them. So if (e.g.) your listing shows photos of unmade beds and nests of wires connected to laptops and unwashed pots in the sink, you might be missing out on a huge swathe of buyers who would be attracted not by a discount but by you giving the appearance of being actually ready to sell the damn property and move on.
If you can’t even be bothered to tidy up for an estate agents photos then I’m gonna assume you don’t look after your house and move on
Price is just a social construct. The question should be 'how can I make this property more attractive' and then the answer isn't always 'price' but sometimes 'paint your goth room in neutral light colours' or 'have a tidy up before you have photos retaken', etc.
Yeah, simply saying "PRICE!" isn't particularly helpful. Like, yeah... obviously. But some of the posts I see on here have glaringly obvious issues with the listings that could be easily fixed and would lead to a lot more interest. Things like listings missing a floorplan, or not having photos of all the rooms, or the property having photos that make it look messy/dirty/depressing/haunted. Everyone likes to imagine that they can see past these things when they're buying, but the reality is they don't and looking through Rightmove/Zoopla is exhausting. I spent the best part of a year looking for a property - when you are trawling through 10-20 new listings a day, the ones that don't capture your interest quickly fade away into non-existence. I wouldn't even look at listings that hadn't been added/reduced in the last 2 weeks - my assumption being that anything which hasn't already been offered on is overpriced or has something wrong with it. That's the reality of the situation. Yes, lowering the price will garner interest and you'll eventually hit a price where it is guaranteed to sell. But drumming up interest and momentum in the first place requires a good listing.
One time there was one listed as 4-bedrooms but it was really 3-bedrooms.
For what is, it's the price. You could also build an extension or landscape the garden. If you change it, it will be worth different price.
lol, I bet you pay for your coffee with winged phrases like this. give me a break 😂🤣
Works every time! Give it a go.
I think this is really missing the point. Obviously everyone knows that the house would sell for £1. The question they're implicitly asking is 'why isn't it selling for this price'. Now the answer may be that it is simply priced out of the area / size / whatever. But it could also be that a small investment in, say, redecorating a room / taking better photos / tidying up / doing the garden etc etc etc might increase the price at which the property will sell for significantly.
Yeah, I agree. People can go “house blind” and think everyone will feel the same about their decor. They also might not realise the factors putting people off or how few people are in the categories that they’re hoping to sell to (rich, child-free bohemians, lots of cats and love the colour purple, not worried about damp and would consider next door to an equestrian facility an enormous plus). Sometimes what people are actually asking is “why is this house not worth as much as I think it is?” Obvious to an independent bystander but maybe not so much if you’ve happily lived there for 5 years.
Aside from the rich part, I think you just described me... I bought a house with damp issues (now fixed), have two cats but would have more if I had the money, have just painted my only bedroom a deep berry purple, and I'd love to have ponies as neighbours!
Totally agree.
exactly this. OP really thinks she did something with this post.
"But it can't be the price, otherwise people will just make a low offer." /s
"Somebody did make a low offer but it was 15% below what our estate agents WeOverpricePropertyAndSon said it was worth."
People also forget the _cash_ impact to buyers. Assume FTB: House is 400k but only worth 350k, buyer has a budget of 400k at 90% LTV. "But why don't they offer 350 and do it up with the extra 50k?" Because they don't have, and possibly can't get, the extra 50k. Borrowing the 50k as part of the mortgage only requires 5k cash. If it's worth 400k the bank will value it as such and will lend on it. If it's worth 50k less they have to find another way to finance the £45k gap to get it to the standard at which it's been priced. It comes down to cash. It's always cash.
This is so true. A bit like people who say just buy a fixer upper to get on the ladder! Thats great if it is just cosmetic stuff. When you have a condemned boiler, windows near falling out and a fuse board that was fitted when dinosaurs roamed the earth you need cash now. We spent £20k just after buying and people who hadn't visited before thought we had done nothing to the place based on photos. We could do the decor stuff more slowly and the place was ultimately a bargain but we couldn't have bought it without sufficient cash on top of our deposit.
Exactly. I've felt like clawing my own eyeballs out these past couple of years trying to explain to (well meaning) people why we haven't been able to buy yet and why the £200,000 house they just found on an auction site is not cheap. We literally don't have the cash for it. "Just do it up and flip it". No, staggeringly, that would still involve paying for it first.
Very good point and I feel it will remain unanswered ! Why viewers are not low-balling? What do they have to lose? They learn price BEFORE viewing, not AFTER. Why do they come at all?
Let's say a house is up for £500k. But is really only 'worth' £400k. A seller wonders why prospective buyers don't just make a low offer. Because buyers with £500k to spend don't want to buy a house for £400k. They want to spend all of their £500k. Buyers with only £400k to spend probably aren't viewing a house listed for £500k
I've got it! thank you, BorisBoris88
I don't think this is quite right, (unless your being literally e.g. 20% markup) but when I was buying my current property I looked at 50k over budget and tried to negotiate down. We found about 20 suitable properties and offered on all of them only 4 accepted offers then we down selected to one based on location. Speaking with friends it seems this is common. The biggest trouble is people who don't entertain an offer 50k less (even when their house has been on market for 7months) It is always price!
>It is always price! Always!
I'd say the exception is for leasehold flats. Where often things don't sell because the agent / seller isn't forthcoming enough to put the lease details (service fees, length of lease) on the listing and it puts off potential buyers instantly who assume red flags / can't be bothered to go through the pain of ringing up the agent to find out (where inevitably whoever picks up the phone won't know the answer either).
I stopped calling after the 5th one as they were clearly always being hidden on purpose and were extortionate. You could also typically tell if you're familiar with the market as they are priced about 20k lower than they would be if it had a reasonable service charge.
I'm staying far away from leasehold now. I had an offer accepted on a flat, it was advised that the service fees were 1250 a year. I thought it was quite high for something with no additional amenities but it was in a great location and something I could afford. I start the process, solicitors go through the documents and flag up that the actual service charge is 4k. Apparently some company had acquired the building, converted it into a bunch of flats and added 75% discount for 5 years to help sell them. The discount was due to expire in about 6 months which is why the seller was trying to get rid of it. Lost a couple hundred pounds because I had to pay for the work that was already completed but that was the better option than being stuck with 4k annual fees.
Its a nightmare. I viewed a flat, asked about the ground rent and told the agent if it's one that doubles I would not buy. He told me that there was no such clause. A month in the solicitor tells me the rent is about to double and when I tell the agent I'm pulling out, the poor couple who are desperate to sell offer to drop the price. The agent wasted my time and theirs by not just putting the lease terms in the ad. I dodged a bullet though, the building had cladding and no EWS1.
And then the poster will say some kind of variation of: “But I paid £200k in 2014 therefore why shouldn’t I get £800k? That’s what the market was two years ago”
Sometimes the decor isn’t great or the garden is poorly maintained and it’s hard for people to imagine living somewhere that looks ugly. If it’s cheap enough it will still go, but just painting the walls and tidying up can help
Best post ever! Recently heard a story where a seller said they "didnt want to give the house away" as a reason they wouldnt accept an offer £10k under asking. A house (and everything) is only worth what people will pay for it. Regardless of how amazing it might be
A very good point. And equally - your property is worth NOTHING if you have no intention to sell it.
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I'd be willing to live with ghosts. For a price.
So over priced to live with ghosts. PRICE :D
I’d pay extra for ghosts
Made an offer on a house. 8% under. Yet 10k more than what the joined house nextdoor went for a year earlier. Same spec. Same age, same layout. The are was new and just starting to appreciate in value. Took them a week to decide and said no. Fair enough we carry on looking elsewhere. A week goes by and my partner asked if I'd be willing to go a few more % on that house as well did like it. Thought sure but I'd like another viewing. Call up the estate agents. They tell us it's under offer so no viewing. Fair enough. For the next month that house is not updated to STC on any of the websites. I call from a different number out of curiosity and get told yes we can get a viewing. Said no thanks. A week later we get a call from the estate agents. Apparently the "offer" fell through and would our offer still be valid? Fuck no. It's been a month. That house is still not under offer... Those people lost out on a quick sale because they wanted what the estate agent promised them in price... I expect they will drop the price soon by 25k
If you actually like the place, why not offer the same price as the house next door went for with exactly that justification? They might well be starting to appreciate a buyer who's actually planning on going through with it, and you've already demonstrated actual interest.
Na they had their chance. They have already shown they are willing to lie when it suits them. Why would I trust someone like that? Maybe they learn from it. maybe they don't. I am not going to fuck around and hope they have. in the time as they were fucking around we found another house. closer to my partner's job, a better area, a bigger house that is more our style, it doesn't require any work AND the seller is motivated.
I mean things like pictures and estate agents can have an affect but I agree, it's almost usually price
Agree! We are currently searching for a house to buy and whenever we turn up for a viewing we are almost always disappointed at how much smaller the house / garden looks in "real life". It is so off-putting. Now, when looking online at houses we automatically assume everything is midget sized to avoid disappointment.
I think every interior photo should have someone in the room just to give a sense of scale. But then EAs will start hiring very short people so the room looks bigger.... And you can see the wide angle lens effect in many photos. In one a doorway will look wide enough to drive a car through. Another photo from a different angle and its just a standard doorway.
Yeah I just go by floor plan. Yes you lack some context but on the plus side it's just clear hard numbers and a 3.2m wide living room is a 3.2m wide living room, no lens angles involved.
On the continent, the standard practice is to have stats and price by square footage . Their rightmoves have filters for it since no one will take a listing seriously if there’s no floorpan provided. Avoids the 4 bedroom Except the 4th one is a closet problem
Being from the continent, yeah, don't remind me, it's my number one pet peeve with UK listings. Both for rentals and for buying btw - it's quite nice to see a floor plan when you're renting too.
We looked at one that actually looked a lot better in real life. The only problem with that is that once you're home, you start doubting yourself because the only thing you're left with are the pictures which look shit...
In getting viewings they are quite effective I think - to what extent this actually translates into sadness that wouldn't otherwise have happened is another question.
This post or and identical one is in this sub fairly regularly and it misses some key points. Some types of houses just take longer to sell, especially if you need a specific type of a buyer in an area that isn’t a major city
I think OPs point is nothing would need time or a special buyer if the price was £1. Therefore it does always come back to price.
Sure but it misses the point, doesn’t it. Like it’s not useful to know any house will sell for £1 - most of us need to get a fair price for our houses because most of us aren’t millionaires
The problem is, that is a complete truism. As much true as it is useless.
Everybody’s dead Dave.
Also important: consider whether it is a buyer’s market or a seller’s market at the time. Right now it is a **buyer’s** market. More properties available than buyers willing to bite. Even so, right-priced properties will still sell very quickly due to high demand. In a seller’s market, there is a higher likelihood of bidding wars, offers above asking price etc than in a buyer’s market. Interested to see if the base rate reduction in autumn changes that!
This is boring and also…obvious. People know that ultimately price will determine whether a house sells. You could sell a pile of bricks by the side of the road for the right price. A lot of questions people are asking are about the UNDERLYING reason why something might not be selling. There is literally a post from a few hours ago where someone has asked and another has pointed out that the schooling options aren’t great….which that person may not have really thought about. Should everyone instead just respond “it’s the price” like a lemming?
I never posted my house on here.. But when we put ours on the market I only had 2 viewings in the first two months and someone was teing me it was the price... We accepted an offer 5k under asking a short while after. So it wasn't the price at all. Op probably lives in a busy area, where employment rates are high and there is a healthy population of buyers. Literally miliions of us living in rural areas where the numbers of potential buyers are very small. So just because you don't sell in a month or two doesn't mean it's overpriced, it just means there hasn't been a long enough opportunity to find a buyer who is in a proceedable position. If price was the only factor - then literally everyone would just sell at auction and be done with it.
When people talk about price, it is in that moment in time. Yes you could wait 6 months for the perfect buyer to come along, but in the present, that buyer doesn’t exist yet. So in the current time, the price isn’t right for your potential buyers.
Also... Would bet a lot that op and a lot of people agreeing have never sold a house either. Which in my experience is considerably more stressful than buying. Its easy on the Internet to write off 20k plus of other peoples money. But no one on these reddit threads has viewed the properties in question and can honestly truely make that call. Not to mention the intimate local knowledge really required to value a house correctly.
I agree - people need to understand why it isn't worth what they think it is. Maybe because the area isn't good, the bedrooms are tiny, there's damp, they're not advertising it right, etc. Also, staging can actually help a bit otherwise rich people wouldn't hire companies to do it. It makes the property a clean, inoffensive space that people can imagine moving into.
And what is the seller supposed to do? Go and build more schools in the area? Nope. Lower the price.
the lemmings are here!. what is wrong with people wanting to understand the drivers of price in the market and what buyers will value? Especially if you don’t understand why one house might have sold and another didn’t? The actual underlying reason of course, not just “hurr durr price”
>the schooling options aren’t great…. Which a buyer will overlook if the price is low enough.
That's not strictly true - for people with kids this could well be a 'I won't buy that at whatever price' deal breaker. I recently bought my first place and I wouldn't even have viewed a property with only bad schools nearby, regardless of price, because I didn't want to willingly walk into 7 years at a bad secondary for my kid. A buyer without kids might buy it for the lower price though.
Yes, that is a good point
We saw some places like that during our search. Questionable areas which we thought we could have overlooked if the price had been low enough. But in reality it would have to be so low the seller would never consider it because we didn’t value the house at all. On reflection you probably couldn’t lower the price enough to make us offer on it. So price was indeed not the issue
And the person asking the question didn’t know about…hence “underlying” reason
> here is literally a post from a few hours ago where someone has asked and another has pointed out that the schooling options aren’t great….which that person may not have really thought about. The seller assumed there was a school related factor to the price, but there isn't unfortunately. You need to price this house lower. EDIT: I hope the OOP realised this, and then reconsiders who they want to market the house to.
Well yes and no, if you are having a lot of viewings and not selling then there could be an issue. Why's there no viewing? Yes probably price
This feels like it could be excellent musical lyrics. Somehow I see Phil Dunphy singing this.
95% of the time is price. But you might one of the unlucky 5%: You have awful photos.
It's not always the price. It's also a location,parks, school, shops, commute etc. Also, a right time. . For example don't sell in the winter, especially in the Christmas time. Sometimes you just need to wait.
So price then?
>It's also a location,parks, school, shops, commute etc. Also, a right time. Indeed. You sell a property in poorer location than comparatives at a lower price. You sell properties next to the best schools at a higher price. You sell a property close to a station or facilities higher. If you need to sell in a recession you won't get as much for your home. Yes - it's always price!
I did not know that the time of year has an effect on sales...
You can make your garden look beautiful.
This should be permanently pinned to the top of the subreddit.
I swear I just come to this subreddit to answer these posts with "it's the price, it's always the price."
and if you want to know the market clearing price then put it up for auction
List it cheap... Attract more interest... Achieve a higher price! :)
I will say an exception for this is amenities. If you’ve priced it higher make sure you include **all** of the amenities. Think about what a basic home has, and then compare to your own home Do you have a utility room? AMENITY Do you have space for a dishwasher? AMENITY Have space for an American fridge/freezer? AMENITY Do you have a pantry? AMENITY
Also I noticed a common theme in the "but this house sold for xx and mine is waaay better" in which case the answer is usually, yours isn't as good as you think, and there's about two hours close by which are better and cheaper.
Thank you for your TED talk
A clean, tidy well presented house with neutral colours, fresh paint and well laid out furniture will typically sell for substantially more (and have a lot more hits/viewings) than the alternative. People browsing will think “that looks nice” and click. People will have an instant impression of the house being well maintained, which may not even be matched to the reality. If the paint is not fresh and there are signs of dirtiness/poor repair, people will assume that goes deeper and is a sign that the property has not been well maintained. Botched DIY or signals that the owner is not house proud would instantly make me move on unless the house was significantly cheaper than otherwise. Things that attract me to a property are things like light, good space, useful rooms and nice features. Those are much easier to appreciate when they are highlighted than when you are trying to look through poor design choices. Even just the light in a room can be entirely changed, and people will move on from a property on that basis. There is a reason why people stage their homes for sale, it can make a really substantial difference to the impression.
“Has potential” Means, I want to sell at the price I think it’s worth after YOU repair, modernise and renovate. “4 bedroom” 4th bedroom is either a cupboard, illegal loft conversion or downstairs dining room. “Highly desired area” Nice area, but is a complete gut job with 70s decor. However, a house on my road which sold for £600k and is in perfect condition sold for that and so I expect the same.
Not enough photos of taps…. Seemingly taps are a big selling point. Why the hell do estate agents love taps so much?!? “Not only does the house have sinks but it’s actually got taps above them”!!!!
Yep, I allowed the estate agents to market it for more than I thought it was worth. I dropped it to what I thought was a fair price within 2 weeks, I got 4 offers. They are right. It is ALWAYS price.
As someone who works in the property pricing industry… correct. “but I spent x amount re-doing/renovating etc etc I put in SO much work to bring up the value” Truth is, it’s worth what people are prepared to pay. Pure and simple.
What happens if the Estate Agent isn't passing on offers? (Other than breaking the law) Checkmate
OP gets it. Everything sells at the right price.
It is always price! Don't care that your neighbour sold his for 20k more....his buyer isn't going to have to spend 50k fixing the roof!!
No its not. Sometimes the number of people wanting to live in a given house - regardless of price - is tiny, but the number of properties available are also tiny. Sometimes you just have to be on the market long enough to let the two connect.
**SCHOOLS**
My question is how soon to reduce… I need a quick ish sale due to on onward purchase My house went up for sale on Wednesday, 3 viewings this weekend - no feedback of offers yet, I appreciate it’s early days but I want to move quickly £375k is the asking price - how soon to reduce and what to? It’s a fair value for the road, if not slightly high, so I would hope that it could encourage some similar or slightly lower offers
It depends on the price compared to other houses currently for sale and recent sold prices. If you’re at the top end currently it may take longer to sell as people will think it may take time to sell and therefore view other properties. If it’s a bargain based on the stock available then it should sell quickly. Be realistic as to its value, if looks like it needs money to be spent on it expect it to hang round for a bit.
It’s a conversation with the agent as it does depend on local market conditions and competition. If the market is busy, I’d take the approach of valuing it low with the aim of getting a bid off going. For example if £330k makes it a steal, have the agent list it at that and try to line most viewings up to happen on the weekend after the reduction with viewings back to back- so they see eachother as one exits and the other enters. Generate momentum and you stand a better chance of achieving £350-360k this way (if it’s worth that), than reducing from 375 to 350 for example in the right market.
Thanks Phil
Saw a house once that was great price for Clapham area - purple and bright colours and filled with wigs. Sure it put a lot of people off.
My landlords flat has been for sale for nearly a year. I offered to buy but he said my offer was too low. It was severely overpriced, by at least 50k. In this whole time we've only had 1 viewing. He's reduced the price in 10k increments every few months. Still nothing. Still overpriced. Landlord doesn't realise his property isn't worth as much as he wants he's living in delulu land perpetuated by the estate agents who are intent on selling him a pipe dream. I still laugh at this idiotic property advisor that tried arguing with me that it was correctly priced based on other properties in the area. I said sure. Nearly 12 months later still waiting for him to prove me wrong.
Price is the biggest single factor, but not the only factor. Layout, Clutter, furniture/decor, lack of downstairs toilet / garden etc etc are all things that impact whether or not people will put in an offer.
How quickly do you think the house will sell if we listed it at £1? ..and how quickly would it sell if we listed it at £1million? The trick is to find the price between this two, where it sells (1) quickly, or (2) for the most money you can get, or (3) both. But all three of those options are different prices. If you go for (2 - the most money), it will sell eventually, but you may have to wait years until all houses on the street are worth more. If you go for (3 - both) you have to be prepared to compromise, and you can’t compromise time, the only person who can do that is Dr Who.
There are exceptions. Things at the top of the market will always take longer to sell but doesn't mean you should cut the price of a £1m house to £600k because there are more buyers at that point.
I bought my house for 90k why isn't it selling for 480k woes me
The 3 sacred words for any property:- “Location,location,location”. Nothing else matters.
I would add that while price is a key factor, there are some additional factors which I’ve seen in the comments and from my own (recent) experience: * Condition of the house itself * Colour the rooms are painted - Is it dull, vibrant or too much? * Is the house cluttered? Can prospective buyers get an accurate estimate of the size of each room? * Is the house in a clean state? Clean rooms, which have been recently vacuumed and dusted. * If there is a garden, has it been managed and taken care of. We viewed a home where the stairs at the back were scary to walk down - hard no! * Does the house look like a home? Furniture and every day goods actually add value (provided it’s not cluttered). We saw empty houses and ones where the owner / tenant was actively living in it, and the latter was more appealing on the eye. We did our best to make our current apartment, where we are the tenants, clean and dusted. We did our best to get rid of things we no longer needed (charity, giving away to friends, and the good old trash), and to organise things to maximise how tidy the place looked. I optimised to keep the kitchen looking as open and removed items from the counters wherever possible (even tho it meant I’d have to give away the tea collection I had accrued). The landlord priced our 2bedroom, share of freehold at just under £650k, which is really price-competitive and he got a potential buyer really quickly. Price was a key factor I’d imagine as the potential buyer really wanted to live in this area but had previously been priced out. We live in Earlsfield, London, and a lot of these areas are either leasehold or sold over £750k so we definitely were priced out. He thought he’d need us to remove some of our things but the potential buyer really loved the home and she was able to get a real sense of how big the rooms are and what she can do with the space.
this! whenever i see people with post on my house isnt selling, why. I always thought, either your house have some sht going on and you are hiding it or your price is inflated so much that just no one willing to pay. REDUCE THE PRICE YOU GREEDY FK. "But i will lose money\~" well, thats just the price you paid for buying it in a inflated price and want to profit it with a even more inflated price
Is this the “r/housinguk” equivalent to: “PRICED. IN.” Shitpost?
"Houses are too expensive" is an easy explanation, but it's not a complete one. If people think it's overpriced they will offer under. But where is the blockage in the funnel? Is the property not marketed at the right audience? Are the pictures terrible? Is the real estate agency useless? Price is a very easy lever to pull and an explanation we all love, but it's not always right.
I’d never buy a house regardless how cheap it is if I had shitty neighbours. Never.
I just went to view a house this morning. Its lovely on the outside from the front, absolutely gorgeous, but as soon as you step in its miserable grey with cheap GREY laminate flooring and a greasy grey kitchen, and the back lawn needs mowing. It would sell at asking price if they changed those couple of things.
But what about if I change agent? Will changing the agent help?
Having looked at several hundred houses on Rightmove it’s because:- You didn’t stage the photos… your junk is still everywhere You have no sense of colour, every room like a fkn kaleidoscope You covered every wall in wallpaper… not going to remove that! Your back garden is a fkn mess Your neighbours gardens are a mess… who wants those neighbours
It's not though, my house is testament to that. It's just an easy power move for people on socials to say that
The housing market in the UK is bonkers... Saw a 4 bed detached family home... Nothing special not small but now like WOW in an area that has commuting distance to Cambridge (V popular at the moment)... £800k. I did the maths... there are two up two down semi-detached houses in the same area for £250k that are together exactly the same footprint... That's an extra £300k for what!? Literally nothing... at this point you're better off buying a row of terrace houses or semi's knocking the walls down between them and turning them into a family home than buying off the middle class easy gens that got rinsed by the boomers in 08 and are now trying to pull the same stunts on us. GTFO. Housing collapse imminent.
People are greedy and think their house is the best thing since last bread!
Markets are really not that hard to understand lolz get rid of any preconceived narrative about what YOU think its worth and look for evidence of what the market thinks its worth.