05 September 2008 |
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SENSIBLE PRICES STILL ATTRACTING BUYERS |
“A property is only worth what a willing buyer is prepared to pay”
With over 40 years experience in the Estate Agency business, Howard Pugh has seen it all before. “every 20 years the property market does a full cycle. However, after a crash prices exceed the peak of the last boom”. What we are experiencing at the moment is a prime example of this statement. Once house prices become affordable in this current economy, more people will buy and in turn the house prices will begin to rise again.
We are of the view that the principal over heating of the house market has again been caused by Banks and Building Societies encouraging borrowers to borrow too much. How can anyone afford 5, 6 or even 7 times their salary. It is financial suicide. Strange when the Banks run out of cash they run to the Government crying for help. What about the borrowers they have misled?
We at Pughs have always advocated marketing properties at realistic prices, by doing so more offers are received, accepted and sales completed. On a falling trade it is always harder to catch up, so overpricing is now the best way of how not to sell.
We have continued to receive the usual number of new instructions and are generally able to advise the vendors to launch their property at a realistic figure. Failure to do so will lead to no serious viewers, no offers and misled disappointed vendors.
Many vendors have been misled by agents when advising upon the value during a market appraisal. This is morally wrong and is often done by the unscrupulous agent to win the instruction. Months later and no sale has been achieved, then comes the price reduction.
In this market sellers are best advised to use well established professional agents who will use their best endeavours to advise correctly and achieve the best result.
There is still money available in the market as we as a firm are still having a high percentage of auction property sold, and land sales continue to increase. It is not all doom and gloom it is just a re-shuffle of the market as before, there will be some losers unfortunately, but it will be better for everyone in years to come.
The sales market aside, the lettings market continues to remain extremely strong. The payment of a rent is and deposit is easier than obtaining a mortgage and often cheaper than the monthly repayments. We continue to let and manage a large number of town and country properties.
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