Have you sold in the last while?

mel123

If so, how long did it take you to sell, and did you have to drop the price?

My estate agent rang this morning, and suggest we drop the price, by 5k, even to get some interest. Im worried now I am not going to sell at all.

Keith C

Check out this website www.irishpropertywatch.com
you may have to drop your asking price further

robd

mel123 wrote:

If so, how long did it take you to sell, and did you have to drop the price?

My estate agent rang this morning, and suggest we drop the price, by 5k, even to get some interest. Im worried now I am not going to sell at all.

Lots of discussion of this on other threads and on this board, www.askaboutmoney.com, www.daft.ie and for the more worrying view www.thepropertypin.com. www.irishpropertywatch.com if you need examples of other houses being reduced.

Basically, ECB interest rates have risen by 1.75%, from 2% to 3.75% since November 2005. House prices rose 10% ish in 2006. Due to this buyers affordability has been severely stretched. Houses are taking longer to sell and some have to be reduced in price to make them affordable enough to attract the interest from buyers.

Every time the ECB raises it's rates by 0.25% a person earning €50,000 will have the their max borrowing amount reduced by €10,000. A person earning €50,000 could have borrowed €300,000 in November 2005, now they can only borrow €240,000.

Everything in the free-ish market economy that Ireland is has a price (including houses), yours is most likely just priced to high for the current market. Bear in mind the reduction for each interest rate increase. Rates went up this month hence your price needs to come down, hence the EA call to you. €5000 seems a small reduction though.

eirmail

mel123 wrote:

If so, how long did it take you to sell, and did you have to drop the price?

My estate agent rang this morning, and suggest we drop the price, by 5k, even to get some interest. Im worried now I am not going to sell at all.

Put yourself in the position of a would be buyer and have a look at how much is the cheapest similar property on daft.ie or myhome.ie. If yours is priced equally to the cheapest similar place you should be okay.
Also if the 5K drop leaves you just above a stamp duty threshold consider dropping further. For example if the 5K drop is from 325 to 320K , look at reducing it to 317.5K.

conor_mc

Okay, I'm bearish on property in general, so with that caveat in mind here's my advice.

Asking prices mean nothing, zero, nada.

An asking price is a notion suggested by your estate agent (who won't be paying that price) and thus expected by yourself (who won't be paying that price either).

What does matter is what a potential buyer will pay. My advice to you is to drop your price to match (if not beat) the current lowest price in your area for a similar house. If your house is in good order, you'll attract whatever interest exists in the market. Hopefully you'll get some competing bids in until such time as the bids will go no higher - that is what the current market value of your house is because that's what a real-life buyer is willing to pay.

mel123

Well the price matches the exact same properties as mine in the area at the moment, so the ‘asking’ price is not higher than average or anything. I am just disappointed, I have not even had a foot in the door – and even if I do say so myself, the place is decorated tastefully and is almost show house standard. Perhaps if I drop by 5k it might get the interest going in it. I know the market is slow/slumping at the moment, and it doesn’t seem like a great time to sell, but sure no point in me talking about the what-if’s (I was going to sell last year but decided against it).

tunney

Where is your property?

Cantab.

mel123 wrote:

...it doesn’t seem like a great time to sell...

...but sure no point in me talking about the what-if’s...

Oh the mantra!

Ostriches come to mind.

Why don't you just drop the price by 50k to get interest going? You must price your house below the lowest equivalently priced house, not the equivalent average price.

kmick

Brother just sold his - started at 700k as suggested by Sherry Fitz. Two estate agents later and 12 months later he sold for 600k. He bought for 400 so he is still up but the market is tough.

By the way I dont think dropping the price to the lowest or lower than your neighbours will guarantee anything. It all depends on condition, decor, modernity. Selling a house is all about selling a lifestyle.

kmick

kmick wrote:

By the way I dont think dropping the price to the lowest or lower than your neighbours will guarantee anything. It all depends on condition, decor, modernity. Selling a house is all about selling a lifestyle.

Whatever about selling a lifestyle - if they have had NOONE through the door they should probably drop the price and under cut everyone else and maybe get some bidding going to a higher price even - no point in dawdling in the current market

Zambia

mel123 wrote:

Well the price matches the exact same properties as mine in the area at the moment, so the ‘asking’ price is not higher than average or anything. I am just disappointed, I have not even had a foot in the door – and even if I do say so myself, the place is decorated tastefully and is almost show house standard. Perhaps if I drop by 5k it might get the interest going in it. I know the market is slow/slumping at the moment, and it doesn’t seem like a great time to sell, but sure no point in me talking about the what-if’s (I was going to sell last year but decided against it).

I sold (dublin) in July of last year , by september it was looking as if my sale was falling through. I pretty much knew then that I would have had to drop the price of the house to sell it by 10k at least.

In the price of houses 5000 is nothing if it sells it this month or next if it stays on the market you have lost that anyway by not selling. I am assuming you do not want to buy some other property as there is a lot to be said for sitting tight if you can.?

Best of Luck , welcome to a buyers market

Lex Luthor

I put mine on the market in Nov and tried selling myself at an asking price of 230k. A few interested and one definitely wanted it but didn't want to commit as they hadn't gone sale agreed on their own. 6-8 weeks past and no other interest. Handed it over to estate agent and they put it on for 240k and sold it in a week for 238k.