How long to sell?

[inchoccyheaven]

I know I might as well be asking how long is a piece of string, but what is the average time to sell your house and then actually move?
Is it realistic to think that if we put our house on the market in June we could move in October?
Are there any websites that can tell you stuff like that for local area?

[beautyspot]

Any property will sell if it's priced correctly.

In the UK mortgage lending fell by 29% in January 2011 - that's a huge figure so property needs to be priced fairly (I guess 10%-20% below 2007 levels).

[JillyWillyPops]

We put our house on the market April last year, reasonably priced. Couple of viewings the first couple of weeks then it went quiet. We dropped the price £5k in September and still no viewings. Finally sold 6 weeks ago for full reduced asking price after a flurry of post chritmas viewings. We're still waiting on a moving date though but are expecting to know this week. I thought our house would have sold straight away as it's a good area etc, never thought it would have taken this long!!

[Ciske]

It took us 16 viewings over nine months, and two price reductions, but the market is horrible here. Price, location and luck all come into it.

[artyjools]

I'm not too sure that any property will sell if it's priced correctly.

We have one offer on our house and someone else who wants to make an offer. Unfortunately, neither have sold their house. We would offer on a house we have seen if we had a complete chain beneath us.

There are plenty of people out there who keep bashing on about making offers 10 to 20% below asking price or the price it was in days gone by (see House Price Crash Forum). Many of these people who want to buy at reduced rates, don't have anything to sell, so they are in a winning situation, but the point for most people is that if they can't sell for a certain price, they won't be able to buy.

As it happens, beautyspot, I think that properties are overpriced and that they need to fall, if only for the sake of our kids. But at the moment, people have no idea what's going to happen, so the market has pretty much stalled where we are. Conversations with the estate agent acting for the house we want to buy suggests the (downsizing) owner is being bullish. We have already dropped our price, but if the houses at the top don't drop in price, we shall simply take our house off the market. I know that others are in the same position.

OP, unless you have a first time buyers' house in a popular location and you are prepared to sell at a reduced price, I suspect you are in for the long haul.

[crw1234]

Hi -if you use property bee with rightmove you can see how long properties have been on the market in your area - there are also loads of websites which will tell you how much properties have sold for and how many - but it does depend on the area and your house - if you need to move in the autum I would thing about putting it on now

[mamatomany]

I'm of the opinion until something very drastic happens like interest rates going up to near 10% and the mortgage's of people on IS or JSA stop being paid then nothing is going to crash.
And even if it does very little in the way of family homes will be affected because contrary to the popular belief on HPC I don't know anyone who borrowed more than 3 times their salaries or lied on their mortgage application forms or had 100% mortgages, people just don't do that when they buy a 4 bed semi for their children to live in.
Buy to let portfolios of 10 one bedroomed city centre flats might end up cheap as chips but solid SE houses I doubt it.

[Ragwort]

It is just so difficult to predict - we sold our house last year in three months for just below the asking price - however friends in the same area still have their house on the market - similar house/similar price - sometimes there is no logic.

The house we bought (we rented for a while) had been on the market for well over a year and the vendors were just about to give up when we made an offer.

Good luck

[chandellina]

Hometrack says the average time to sell is now 10 weeks, with Southern regions averaging 8.6 weeks and Northern regions 12.1 weeks.

My experience as a wannabe buyer is that houses are either selling within the first few days on the market or are languishing for months (despite price drops). I guess it all comes down to how motivated the seller is.

I think any rise in rates will cool the market off even further. I know plenty of people who borrowed four or five times salary for a 90% or 100% mortgage - that was totally normal in London/SE during the boom. Otherwise you'd have to be making about £150K a year to afford a very modest London 3-bed and more like £200k for a 4-bed on 3x salary.

[theyoungvisiter]

we sold ours within the week, but it then took nearly 6 months more for the whole chain to come together and the paperwork to actually happen.

A lot of the delays were to do with the mortgage company who are, in my impression at least, being more picky and demanding more surveys etc than they used to.

[notquitenormal]

We had an very-nearly-asking price offer within 24hours (and we priced just slightly below similar houses in the area which had been on the market for 6+ months.)

Struggling to find something else now. The only things that don't go within the first couple of weeks are things that are priced 10-20k higher than everything else and the owners wont budge.

[beautyspot]

"10-20k higher than everything else" leaves things a bit open notquitenormal

If that's on a property valued at £100k - then that's a lot however on a £900k property it's hardly a whimper.

[artyjools]

And, as I have said above, if there isn't a complete chain below the person who has offered on your place, the offer is a waste of time. We have a five-bed house. The chances of us getting a cash buyer are very small. The fact that we have people wanting ours at around the asking price suggests that they don't think it's overpriced (of course, ALL houses are over-priced at the moment). But to anyone looking for houses on Rightmove, ours has been on the market for some time and isn't under offer - so therefore must be over-priced!!

Also, I agree with mamatomany. Many people did not buy with excessive mortgages and, if they have owned the house for several years, there is probably plenty of equity in it. This doesn't mean they can be generous to whoever wants to buy their house, as they usually have to buy somewhere else. There may be an argument for suggesting downsizers could be generous, but have you any idea how expensive care for the elderly is? I do, and it is SHOCKINGLY expensive. Some of the guys on House Price Crash Forum have a vile attitude to our elderly folk.

Anyway, it will be stalemate, I think, for some time to come, unless interest rates go up or there is mass unemployment. I suspect the government will want to avoid both of those if possible!

[notquitenormal]

We're in the 160k-180k region...so at lot I think.

Classic example. 1 street, 3 houses up for sale;
A fixer upper at 165k SSTC
One in better condition, but decoration at bit old fashioned at 170k SSTC
And one that's similar to No2 at 190k...and been on the market for over a year. We're told they rejected an offer 6 months ago at 180k.

[inchoccyheaven]

Looks like I am just going to have to keep my fingers crossed then. I work seasonally from home and during that time have lots of stock which means the house looks cluttered etc which is why ideally I want to sell over the summer when all work stuff won't be here and I can keep the place tidy ( hopefully :o ) whereas that will be virtually impossible when it is work time.

[selby]

On the market in Oct (competitively priced to sell) and had a flurry of offers after 18 viewings, one of which we accepted in November. Despite being a relatively short chain, we still haven't exchanged 4 mths later... let's just say that our patience is wearing extremely thin. The only saving grace is that it hasn't impeded us from relocating - we've decided that we would endure paying both mortgage and rent in the interim - short term pain for long term gain is my daily mantra!

[PuraVida]

I guess it's all to do with demographics. Contrary to mamatomany pretty much everyone I know borrowed 4/5 times their joint salaries and borrowed at least 90% and in most cases 100% and very often on interest only. Also dye to our age most of my peers bought in 06 or 07

We on the other hand didn't. And gave gone from lamenting that we missed to boat to actually being quite positive. We've saved a pretty good deposit and house prices where we live have always been considered to be immune to falls (desirable, affluent area with small supply and large demand) are definitely coming down. However we've waited sp long we a) know the Market very well and won't pay over the odds and b) are in no rush and not overly willing to compromise

[PuraVida]

Whoops forgot to make a point

The point is there are v few people in a position to buy atbthe moment. And those that are are nervous of a falling Market and mostly not in a rush, having already waited an age

[mrshotrod]

I just hope the house I really like lingers on the market while we try to 'repair' our suddenly broken chain below us. We went on in July, sold in Aug, fell through in late Sep, got 2 new lower offers before Christmas, they changed their minds (Jinxed by 'damp' on first buyers survey') Tanked the house to 'fix' the con of not such a big damp problem, reduced price, accepted lower offer, lost first purchase we were trying to complete on, and now....buyers buyer pulls out. It's a rocky road out there, and you just don't know what's going to happen. If ours does end up going back on again it'll surely look like there is something wrong with it, but it sold and fell through this time through no fault of the house! Aghhh.
Not so much lending now, people nervous about jobs, and lots of us paid over the odds for our homes 6-8 years ago etc it doesn't make for a very great market I can tell you.

[artyjools]

I feel your pain, mrshotrod, although we haven't got at far as you .

I had a conversation with our estate agent this week, along the lines of - if the two couples who want ours will drop their prices in order to sell, we would accept a lower offer and then push the drop in price up the chain. Seemed sensible to me.

THEN I found out that the house we have had our eye on since last summer, which we thought was overpriced then and probably about £100k overpriced now, has just gone under offer for around the asking price! Apparently there were three people after it. All of a sudden, lots of the larger houses in the price bracket we are looking at are under offer. So not everyone is affraid of the economic climate - and that's the SE for you .