Probably like every other agent I have alerts setup in Rightmove and Zoopla to email me properties that are placed on the market for rent and also properties put up for sale. You need to keep an eye on both rental and sales to know what is happening in your area and to see what properties are selling for to keep landlords and investors informed on their likely yields.
On Saturday I received my usual update from Rightmove for one of my alerts for houses within a certain price range. Straight away if you look at the image above you can see what caught my eye. Of the first 8 properties on the list 6 had been reduced. Today I have received another Rightmove alert for a reduced property and it is the one on Chalk Hill which hadn’t been reduced on Saturday when I received the alert so now 7 of the first 8 properties on my email alert have been reduced in price.
Why so sudden and why now ? if I did sales I might be able to tell you and once I have spoken to a couple of the local agents I might know for sure but some might say it is related to the recent stamp duty change for homeowners/landlords buying a 2nd home. One of our landlords collected the keys to the house he was buying on the 31st and it would have cost him £8000 more if he hadn’t.
I spoke to Ed Harrison of Esatet Agents Deakin-White in Dunstable about the price reduced properties. His thoughts on it is “sellers and some agents had become too optimistic with pricing in the current climate and they are still seeing plenty of buyers including home movers and investors. Investors have just accepted the fact that they will be looking for a better return long term and may try a lower offer.”
With regards the property on Chalk Hill that I mentioned above he had been invited to value that property and put a value of £400,000 on it. Another agent had valued it at over £450,000 and marketed it at that price. It has now been reduce a number of times, placed with a second agent and is below his original valuation. The best time to sell a property is as soon as it comes on the market and is fresh to all those active buyers. Whereas when it was new to the market it should have sold at £400,000 the property is now old stock because it was priced too high and the seller is looking at taking a lower price to be able to find a buyer.
Maybe we are seeing the start of a correction in the prices and it might just be that the local market in Dunstable which had seen significant price rises in the last 12 months is now calming down.
There were definitely more reduced properties appearing in the last few weeks before this sudden rush last week.
