Will my house sell in this current market?

Mind Hunter 85

hi all,

we decided to sell our house and i was wondering with the current market will it be difficult ?its a 3 bed mid terrace in drogheda about 5 years old ,
we're looking for 290,000-295,000 can we expect to get that and how long does it usually take to sell these days?
other houses in our estate vary in price from 280,000-300,000 [the exact same houses] i'd be very happy with 295,000 though.

the reason for selling is we want to leave the country. my biggest fear is that it will be unsellable .is it difficult to sell a house in that price range ?ideally we'd like to have at least sale agreed within 6 months.

any advice would be apperciated thanks.

ps the reason im not asking this to the estate agent is because their anyway going to say what we want to here so we'll go with them .

mathias

In that price range and assuming your place is in good shape I cant really see a problem.

Selling myself in Kildare for that price range , 3 bed semi , and its only been up for 3 weeks and weve had 8 couples viewing so far including a ( too low ) offer in the first week.

So , for the price range were talking about here , Id say you'd be alright.

EIN

ASTA20 wrote:

hi all,

we decided to sell our house and i was wondering with the current market will it be difficult ?its a 3 bed mid terrace in drogheda about 5 years old ,
we're looking for 290,000-295,000 can we expect to get that and how long does it usually take to sell these days?
other houses in our estate vary in price from 280,000-300,000 [the exact same houses] i'd be very happy with 295,000 though.

the reason for selling is we want to leave the country. my biggest fear is that it will be unsellable .is it difficult to sell a house in that price range ?ideally we'd like to have at least sale agreed within 6 months.

any advice would be apperciated thanks.

ps the reason im not asking this to the estate agent is because their anyway going to say what we want to here so we'll go with them .

i have seen many houses in drogheda for sale for ages and ages... that would normally sell in a day or so! nothing seems to be selling..... i have been keeping my eyes on houses thats for sale to see whats happening... lately noticed that one had 2! estate agents signs in the gardens...not good..

it depends on what estate it is in? which estate?
if i had to sell my house in the current climate, i would be worried..
one particular 3 bed house i was keeping my eye on has been for sale since Oct 06! and price was dropped by 30k 2 months ago and its still for sale!

i think the whole interest rate thing has people worried.. and they are less likely to change house, or possibly cant get a mortgage....

best of luck selling!

http://www.daft.ie/searchsale.daft?s%5Bcc_id%5D=c9&s%5Ba_id%5D=3171&s%5Bmnp%5D=&s%5Bmxp%5D=&s%5Bbd_no%5D=3&refine=Refine&search=1&s%5Bsearch_type%5D=sale&s%5Brefreshmap%5D=1&search_type=sale

482 houses for sale in Drogheda - the no for sale in the county of Louth if you see the above link has quadrupled since August last year. Since the beginning of the slowdown.


231 houses come up on daft as 3 bed roomed for sale in Drogheda.

see this link http://www.daft.ie/searchsale.daft?search=1&s[cc_id]=c9&s[a_id]=3171&s[mnp]=&s[mxp]=&s[bd_no]=3&s[search_type]=sale&s[refreshmap]=1&s[sort_by]=price&s[sort_type]=a&offset=8&limit=8&search_type=sale&offset=16

Many below 250,000 euros. You know the area and know whats a good or bad area you will have a better idea than I would of Square footage in those for sale but you need to put yourself in a buyers shoes and view the competition that way and price accordingly.

If you are saying houses in your area are valued between

280,000-300,000 [the exact same houses]

then in if your house is perfect then this is a bonus that will attract viewings in this sort of a market before others but not if it has an asking price above the others.

If you want a quick sale then drop the price below all the houses nearby and get people in the door - remember you dont have to accept what you may consider an offer too low - just that the important thing is to generate interest in your house as some people are finding it hard to get viewings.
Of course undercutting the price leads to a downward trend but who do you need to look after ? Yourself of the other sellers?


Best of luck with the sale

patrickolee

Your two choices probably are as the previous poster said, drop your price a little to generate interest, or consider renting it out for a while you are away, and sell in a year or two?

Now is probably a bad time to sell as there is nervousness out there, however founded or unfounded, as you can see in some of the other threads here. That won't help in selling. But as things settle down, perhaps next year would be better to sell. Obviously you are running the risk that prices will fall between now and then. But who really knows?

mathias

Your two choices probably are as the previous poster said, drop your price a little to generate interest, or consider renting it out for a while you are away, and sell in a year or two?

To the OP , this section of the boards is Nostradamus territory , were all doomed it would seem ,
but before taking the above advice , I would put it on the market and see the level of interest first , price drops come much later , Im no economics wiz , but that makes sense to me!

patrickolee

mathias wrote:

To the OP , this section of the boards is Nostradamus territory , were all doomed it would seem ,
but before taking the above advice , I would put it on the market and see the level of interest first , price drops come much later , Im no economics wiz , but that makes sense to me!

Lol, I'm probably one of the more bullish posters on here. I'd be fairly confident in saying that many of them think I'm mad in my positive outlook! So, in short, no, I don't think we're all doomed. Rather the opposite.

However I do recognise that many people currently think we are all doomed and since they are your potential buyers, they are probably the people to keep in mind. The problem with putting it on the market at a higher price and then dropping it when you don't get any bites is that your buyers will think if they wait for a little longer you might come down even more! In addition the longer the house is on the market the harder it will be to shift as people will think there's something wrong with it.

Personally if I was in your situation, I wouldn't sell now, I'd rent and sell when people calm down, which they will.... but then I'm a gambler.

Good luck to the OP, whatever path he/she follows.

The_Conductor

To be honest- if you want to sell your house, you must be competitive with the alternatives in your immediate area. You are saying that there is an identical house for sale for 280k, and yet you feel its feasible to seek 15k more for your own one. Why? Is there an inherent reason that you have not mentioned why someone should spend an extra 15k on your house over and above another identical house?

In the current market, its entirely possible that things may get better in the autumn, and your house may generate interest at the 295k mark. But its also possible that there may be another interest rate increase, and further erosion of public sentiment in the marketplace. The summer months are traditionally pretty dead in the property market one way or the other.

The market place has fundamentally shifted in favour of purchasers, where it was up until recently a sellers market. You need to reflect this changed scenario in your expectations, and if you want a house sale in a reasonable timeframe, make adjustments accordingly.

Personally I think its totally unrealistic to expect your house to sell for 295 when identical houses are on the market at 280. If I were you, and I wanted a sale, I'd say 275 and try to get a little more on top of this for furniture and fittings.

Mind Hunter 85

Thanks for the advice everyone.

unfortunatley
we really need to sell to buy the property where we're going .
we would be selling the place fully furnished [ the stuff is a few yrs old now] , and we built a wall around the front garden as well ,dont know if those things will hold any value though .The house is in Knockbrack Downs .

i have been watching the market myself on a weekly basis for the past year and am fully aware that there are a lot of houses for sale in drogheda when i bought there was 52 on daft now its in the high 400's .
and some prices have dropped ,but were i am they stablized last summer ,dropped this year briefly and now there back at what they were last summer.

i don't know the outlook looks bleak but we will put it on the market to see what happens anyway all we can do is try .

EnoughSaid

You can see a graph showing the huge increase of property for sale on the Daft website here:

http://daftwatch.atspace.com/daftcounty_9.html

The only way your property will stand out from the rest is if it is priced competively

patrickolee

Let us know how you get on. Best of luck with the sale.

Victor

Drop the price and be willing to sell well below 280k. Given you have the house for 5 years, you will have a lot of capital appreciation.

But what happens if moving abroad doesn't work and you want to come back?

ASTA20 wrote:

and we built a wall around the front garden as well ,dont know if those things will hold any value though .

Don't. What if a prospective buyer wants to widen the driveway. They will have to pay to undo your work.

Do-more

To give you something positive to focus on, you only need to find one buyer to sell your house!

Look at it on the premice that only one house will change hands in your estate between now and the end of the year. (It's unfortunately a very real proposition)

You really need to present your house as if it were a show house. Remember people have very little imagination when it comes to these things. You need to fix everything that needs fixing, even tiny cracks in the plasterwork. You need to re-paint everywhere that is a little grubby such as the hall and stairs. Clean your carpets and spruce up your tiles. And you need to de-clutter and de-personalise the entire house. Outside you need to do the same and keep your lawns trimmed and flower beds blooming.

You really need to educate yourself on the negatives that are facing you down the line.

There is a huge amount of development land coming on stream in North County Dublin which will probably be more attractive to commuters to North Dublin than Drogheda is.

The German economy is still performing very well so there is the very real possibility that interest rates will rise by a further 1% in this cycle of increases.

And finally the Central Bank is looking to introduce new rules on lenders obliging them to stress test applicants for current rates +3% (instead of the current 2%) which will make it increasingly difficult for prospective buyers to get mortgage approval for large sums.

So, give your house the make over and pitch the price at the low end of the range and best of luck.

Oh and offer the EA a €500 cash bung for selling your house, so it gives him/her something to focus on too....;)

chump

Do-more wrote:

And finally the Central Bank is looking to introduce new rules on lenders obliging them to stress test applicants for current rates +3% (instead of the current 2%) which will make it increasingly difficult for prospective buyers to get mortgage approval for large sums.

3% thing confirmed as spurious

http://www.rte.ie/business/2007/0618/IFSRA.html?rss

The regulator said that its review was initiated in response to 'new products and other developments' in the market, but that media reports that said the stress test would go up to 3 percentage points are wrong.

Do-more

chump wrote:

3% thing confirmed as spurious

http://www.rte.ie/business/2007/0618/IFSRA.html?rss

Missed that! Cheers for the info.

It is still likely however that lenders will be more wary of borrowers ability to pay in a rising interest rate environment....

conor_mc

Do-more wrote:

To give you something positive to focus on, you only need to find one buyer to sell your house!

Look at it on the premice that only one house will change hands in your estate between now and the end of the year. (It's unfortunately a very real proposition)

As someone who has recently sold, that's damn good advice from Do-more. Even in a bear market, houses will always sell. You just have to make sure that it's YOUR house that sells, not the one down the road.

1) Pristine, show-houses sell.... worth an investment of a couple of grand if needs be to spruce the place up.

2) Don't start high on asking price and drop later down the line. You need to understand that the market will pay whatever the market will pay. Asking prices mean nothing, because the people who set the asking price range are your competitors and their EA's. Guess what - that means they won't be buying your house so ignore them. Understand that if you're lucky enough to get two interested parties, then the price received will reflect that accordingly. If you're lucky enough to get just the one interested party, realise that you're lucky to have an interested party at all because most of the other 400+ houses in Drogheda don't.

3) For clarity's sake, decide what your minimum sale price could be. Not what you'd like it to be, but the price that you cannot afford to drop below. You're in an environment of falling prices and rising inventory - that's fact, not opinion - so the last thing you want to do is chase the market down and watch 2/3 similar houses sell over the next few months because they had an asking price 15k lower than yours, when you could easily have afforded to drop that 15k yourself. As I said, I've sold recently (Stamullen) and even though I'm a total bear on property, this was the hardest thing to do - adjusting from a high expectation to a new, lower one. Thankfully for us, our willingness to do that before others followed resulted in two potential buyers and bids above our new asking price, and well above our minimum acceptable price.

Best of luck with it.

whizzbang

One more thing, I would not price in the furniture, there is a good chance the people may have different taste to you. Drop the price and then negotiate with them if they are interested in getting the furniture as well. Remember a lot of people will already have their own furniture and may see the "includes furniture" as a down side as they would have to dispose of it!

Mind Hunter 85

the unfortunate thing is that i dont have the house for 5years its about 5years old i have it only a year and a half. if i had it longer i could afford to drop to 260000 if needs be.
yes i'm considering strongly putting a grand or 2 into it . i won't have much profit if 280000 is all i can get ,i'll be staying put for now the conclusion we've come to is that 288000-290000 is as low as we can go

. i bought the place for 237000 and have a mortgage with 222000 left on it [we put some of our own money into buying it]
its geniunely a reluctant sale, im happy in drogheda its really come into its own in the past year .i have personal reasons which will require being abroad for some time.
we're going back to my husbands homeland so we know the story with whats what there.
i feel trapped now that my house could become unsellable .

i wonder would it be of any benefit to mention that rental here has increased by 100euro a month in my estate in 7months

patrickolee

I'm confused. If you bought for 237000 would 260000 not still be a healthy profit? Apologies if I'm missing something, maybe its the money you put in along the way?

Mind Hunter 85

yes its my personal problems , i need the funds i need a 68,000 profit on top of the 222000 i have to pay off for it to be workable for me. i dont think this is unreaonable but thats my opinion .
i think that i'll see whats happens if theres no buyers i'll have to wait a few years:(

Glenbhoy

If you rent it, you should be aware that you may may have to pay CGT on a portion of your gains when you do sell. Also, there will be a small stamp duty clawback as you'll have to pay the stampduty that an investor would have paid if they had bought your property. In addition, you'll have to make income tax returns and pay tax on the rental income (if applicable, there may not be any tax due, but it's more beauracracy anyway).

whizzbang

You don't have to make a profit selling a house. Maybe you should consider taking a loss if you need the place sold?

Holding on because you "won't make a profit at X price" does not make much sense in a falling market. At some stage you are better off cutting your losses.

chump

ASTA20 wrote:

yes its my personal problems , i need the funds i need a 68,000 profit on top of the 222000 i have to pay off for it to be workable for me. i dont think this is unreaonable but thats my opinion .
i think that i'll see whats happens if theres no buyers i'll have to wait a few years:(

Of course you're being unreasonable! Christ, there is a very real chance prices will fall to what you bought it, and below, before they rise again. Be aware of that. I don't think you realise you may well be in the midst of an actual property crash.

Calina

ASTA20 wrote:

yes its my personal problems , i need the funds i need a 68,000 profit on top of the 222000 i have to pay off for it to be workable for me. i dont think this is unreaonable but thats my opinion .
i think that i'll see whats happens if theres no buyers i'll have to wait a few years:(

I'm going to have to stop reading A&P very soon I think.

You are expecting a profit in excess of 25% over a purchase you made 18 months ago in a market which is static - at best - but which in reality is falling. That is unrealistic, to be honest with you.

For you to get a profit of 68K, you need someone to pay you that sort of excess money over your purchase price and the problem in this country is that the number of people able or willing to feed into the pyramid scheme which is residential property in Ireland is starting to fall and fall rapidly. The truth is this: rents went up 100E a month but given that supply is starting to come back on stream, that may not last for much longer.

By the time you get to make a 68K nominal profit you will have paid interest, there will be inflation eating into it, and, if you rent it out, there will be other taxation issues to consider. Maybe your rent will have covered off some of the interest but it may not cover all of it. I don't know the market in Drogheda too well because frankly I've never cared to commute all that way into Dublin anyway.

You have two requirements: you want to sell, and you want to make a specific profit for whatever reason. The market does not care what the reason is.

Any house will sell if it is priced according to what the market will bear. If it is not selling then it is too expensive as far as the market is concerned. In other words, your house is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it. If that figure is not 295K or whatever you think is reasonable, but higher, you're probably not going to complain. If it's lower, the exact same mechanism is at work. The market decides how much your house is worth. You have little or no say in it.

It's up to you whether you want to spend an extra couple of grand redecorating it, and an extra couple of months financing the property while you try to get what you think is a reasonable price for it. However - and this is what it boils down to - by the time you eventually get that 295K you will have spent more money which comes out of your profit figure.

You have to decide do you really want to sell it, in which case forget about the mythical profit which you seem to think you're entitled to and price according to what the market is willing to bear, or whether you want to be in there for the long haul. In my past experience, the long haul is "three months dude, can't arrange the financing sorry".

Afuera

ASTA20 wrote:

i need a 68,000 profit on top of the 222000 i have to pay off for it to be workable for me. i dont think this is unreaonable but thats my opinion .(

You're hoping for a 25% profit in the space of a year and a half for little or no effort on your part? Sounds unreasonable and greedy to be honest. I'm sure some of your neighbours will be glad to sell for less than the 68,000 profit that you "need".

delboy159

The link is calculator permanenttsb created to give a general idea on house price growth.

If you bought your house for 237k in Dec 2005 it predicts the current value (outside Dublin) to be 260k. Obviously that doesn't factor in quality of fit out, renovations, areas that have exceeded the norm etc....

It does give a fairly simple idea though!

http://www.permanenttsb.ie/calculator/house-price-calculator.asp

Mind Hunter 85

ok , i seem to be annoying ppl here sorry .
and what of the people who now hold 100-150k profits on their houses bought 5/6years ago do you hold that profit against them if they can get it?
if i get my profit good if i cant hard luck but dont i deserve the chance to try ?
we worked hard to get this far believe me it was not easy [like most people struggle]
can i ask why should i advertise my house for 260000? etc when there are several houses advertised identical to mine at 290000-295000, my neighbour is looking for 300,000[same house]
i could understand 285000 for example .
that calculator while useful is too generalized. due to the fact theres on average developed for all outside dublin .

now i clearly understand there is a high chance i will not get my price and yes i run the risk by waiting of losing all possible profit . but if that happens i'll stick around long term wait out the 5 or so years it could take for a rise to occur .
financally we can afford the mortgage now but im unsure about in 10years time.

i expect it would take 6 months to sell that is acceptable to me .
thank you for all your comments your honesty is appreciated

just i simply cant understand why people are angry for me wanting a profit
but Calina you are right its the market that decides what i get . i'll see what happens in a few months

patrickolee

Well you haven't annoyed me anyway. Nothing wrong with trying to get as much as you can for the house. Good luck with the sale.... do let us know how you get on. cheers.

LegacyUser

In same boat myself - proud owner of a second house shortly - 5 houses for sale on our road - dropping in price week by week - some on sale for months.
I wouldn't even fathom a guess on how long it takes to sell in this type environment. Seems that even with a drop in price they aren't selling. :eek: Anyone who bought in the last couple of years must be in negative equity already.

conor_mc

ASTA20 wrote:

can i ask why should i advertise my house for 260000? etc when there are several houses advertised identical to mine at 290000-295000, my neighbour is looking for 300,000[same house]
i could understand 285000 for example .

You're missing the point here.

None of the houses advertised at 290-300k have been sold, therefore they are probably over-priced since the list of similar properties is growing.

If you drop to 285k, you're only dropping into a range where a potential buyer still has a choice of several properties. If you drop to 260k or whatever, you could well find a buyer who can't afford 285k but can afford 260k. There might even be two potential buyers that can and will stretch each other until one pays 270k, who knows. But this is how the market works.

If you wait 3 months and get no offers, by then your 260k potential buyer can only afford 250k after another interest rate rise. And your neighbours haven't a hope of selling for 300k.

SkepticOne

ASTA20 wrote:

just i simply cant understand why people are angry for me wanting a profit
but Calina you are right its the market that decides what i get . i'll see what happens in a few months

I think you may have grabbed the wrong end of the stick if you thing that. Everyone here as far as I can tell is trying to advise you on the best course of action. No one is objecting to you making a profit.

I think where there might be frustration is with the idea that a relatively high asking price is the way to maximise profit. In a falling market that might not be the wisest course of action. You might be better off undercutting everyone else by using a particularly low price to get the bids in.

It is practicality and realism people are arguing about, not the ethics of taking a profit.