Muted September for housing market, says our 'man with a board'

Some of the more blinkered EA’s on here, the ones that insist there is no issue with overvaluing, take great delight on attacking people who are trying to buy a house as ‘uneducated’, ‘childish’, ‘moronic’. Interesting that such terms spring so readily to mind for them, perhaps that tells you something about them.

Also interesting what utter contempt these people have for the hordes of people who would be their customers, if only they gave proper valuations. Instead of pricing at the level where only middle class amateur BTL’ers who don’t know what to do with their cash and people selling their overpriced houses to each other can afford.

They could be doing very nicely out of much higher transactions, but just cannot figure out how.

• 03 October 2011 15:59 PM

Sorry meant to add this.

I thought it had been agreed ages ago not to have articles based on such narrow samples. Agency Express aren't big enough to give a reliable enough sample and in any event not all properties have boards anyway

• 03 October 2011 15:37 PM

The value of anything is only what someone will pay for it. The 'value' may be different to a buyer or a seller for different reasons, but the value of any given property is the contract price.

I suggest anyone posting to this thread looks at

BIH at 9.04 only mistake he made was to use too extreme an example. Substitute £200K instead and he is spot on.

Lou at 1037 - saying what I have been for ages that it is all so different this time round because of the lack of funding and the high deposits being demanded. Factor in job uncertainty and possible big stock market falls yet to come and I wonder why anyone buys anything at the moment.

• 03 October 2011 15:36 PM

Surely, Richard, EAs have far more pressing matters than sitting in front of CBeeBies all day.

• 03 October 2011 13:44 PM

Chris- New to the site? these to££ers post rubbish everytime "price" is mentioned, they never post when Cebeebiessssss are on. The craps the same the name changes as they learn bigger words, one even got as far as Billy.

• 03 October 2011 13:39 PM

Agree with Rick that there are additional factors coming into play to worsen outlook for the market - not only are many asking prices seen as ludicrously optimistic, also mostly unaffordable (there is a limited proportion of houses which can achieve over half a mil - although it seems all det. 4beds in my area are at least that and then some - who is going to buy these??? Can't imagine that there is an equal proportion of buyers who are in a position to oblige) - there is also the increased potential risk with buying at present.
In a rising market, it doesn't matter too much if your life changes and you need to move sooner than your long-term plan would have you - you can always sell up and move at no great loss. However now, with job security a thing of the past and major questions over the housing market being in a massive bubble, then the thought of buying a great family home, just about affordable if a long-term plan, but then the spector of perhaps losing £50k-£100k in value over the next few years tied in with a potential necessary house move/life change sooner than planned for and realising that loss, is just too much to contemplate.

Is not just FTBs who are clued up. All levels of buyers are looking much more cautiously at their next purchase, which is no bad thing.
Buyers still want to buy, sellers still want to sell; a vendor doesn't have to sell if they can't get the price they want but the same goes for buyers too. You agents out there need to change your approach and bring the two sides together rather than just dismissing buyers who won't go for what you're offering.

• 03 October 2011 10:37 AM

The comment made by our presumably 'non - estate agent' friend @ 9:04 this morning, does not make good reading for those of us estate agents that are trying our best to demonstrate our industry's professionalism.

That being said, although the criticism may being warranted, I would ask whether the the 'tone' of this contribution is appropriate for what I believed to be a facility for the fraternity of our profession to pass intellectual comment, not an internet 'stocks' to enable Joe public to throw cheap insults at us.

Is it not possible for 'The Estate Agent' to bounce these pesky gatecrashers off our site?

• 03 October 2011 10:30 AM

I just bought a place for 25% less than it was last bought for in 2006. Not a screaming bargain but a realistic price and the first of decent value I'd seen in 9 months of searching.

Houses are not selling in significant numbers because asking prices are generally unrealistic.

• 03 October 2011 10:29 AM

According to the Land Reg and Nationwide, house prices are selling at roughly the same price level they were in 2003. There would need to be some very substantial improvements to price it at more than 2007 levels (unless this is central London and the original poster's first language is Russian).

• 03 October 2011 10:12 AM

@Buying I hope.

Agreed, the agent did seem a bit 'thick'!

However, the price of the property in 2007 is only one facet of the current price. Had any improvements been carried out since then (this is often overlooked in simple comparison observation), what if £thousands had been spent on it? Do you know?

• 03 October 2011 10:09 AM

For decades I have stuck to that mantra - get the price & marketing right & you'll find a buyer. Usually it's true. But we are in rather uncharted waters, different from the doldrums of the mid 70s, mid 80s & early 90s. On each occasion the "sophistication" (for want of a better word) of the housing market has been leveraged & we are now in an arena where global factors, let along national economics & consequently a high degree of understandable risk aversion are the principal braking mechanisms. We've put the hand-brake on at the traffic lights.
Prices almost certainly do need further downward adjustment & obviously borrowing potential needs to improve but fear of the unknown is the main stagnator at present - good marketing & lower prices are not going to resolve that any time soon.

• 03 October 2011 09:09 AM

I visited a house at the weekend with an asking price of £295,000, which is about £15,000 more than it was sold for in 2007. The owner was resolutely not open to offers. After the agent told me that the price had nothing to do with it not selling. So I asked if he thought that it would sell at the current asking, he admitted it probably would not. I asked him if he could sell it at £100k, he said he definitely could. I asked him if he wanted to reconsider his assertion that price had no bearing on making a sale, he simply did not understand the question. And you wonder why people have such low regard for EA’s.

The sooner morons like this go bust to be replaced with someone who actually has a brain cell or two the better.

• 03 October 2011 09:04 AM

an agent is only as good as his or her company how they market and how they value, get the asking price right and market correctly and you will sell............very simple really.

• 03 October 2011 08:15 AM