vectraman

Love the EA description, perfect starter home!!!! At the bargain price of £400,000.

Just recently started looking for a home in Leighton Buzzard at the start of the year and have no idea what prices have been doing, what's the market doing over there up/down/flat? Where I'm coming from (Harpenden) the majority of new listings are still going on at 2007 plus 10% although a few are knocking off 3-4% after its sat there for a couple of months.. Thanks in advance for any info, its always good to hear the opinion of like minded locals.

Good point, I can see how they could get away with it on a block of flats where no one knows whats going on, I know flats where boards are a permanent fixture but why would a vendor let an EA put a sold board up outside a regular house when its not sold, what's the advantage for the vendor.

Really curious about this, why on earth would anyone allow an EA to put up a sold board outside there property when it hasn't been sold or its been withdrawn from the market. Sorry if I'm missing the obvious here.

we are well into extra-time though!!

Never ever underestimate peoples stupidity. The majority of people involved in fueling this mess were around between 1990 and 1994 it really wasn't that long ago.

Hi Steve, we have visited Hemel on occasions for shopping and even leisure at Jaman Park when the children were younger and the best I can say about it is average at best. Don't know Kempston at all so no comment about that. Some suggestions have you looked at Harlington just off the M1 at J12 and a 40/45 min train into St Pancras or further up the track/motorway Ampthill a very nice town indeed. V

Well I certainly didn't think it was dramatically underpriced and I would be keen to hear your thoughts after viewing the following 2 links. http://www.ashtons.co.uk/clientUpload/pdf/HPN080186.pdf http://www.houseprices.co.uk/e.php?q=fiddlers+hill%2C+harpenden Please also note it is actually in Bedfordshire and the council tax is collected by Central Beds, so if someone was buying for a coveted Harpenden school place would they be eligible. Not a bad price rise in 5 months approx 33% I suppose 109 is worth a little more as its end of terrace compared to 111 being mid-terrace but 33% ?? On the plus side if anyone does buy it at that price there's a great pub 200 yards down the lane.

Agree your 3 examples have been hanging around for a while and would appear to be reasonably priced compared to some of the houses I have seen sold within a couple of days of the 1st weekend of marketing. For example http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-23662360.html?minPrice=550000&maxPrice=600000&maxDaysSinceAdded=14&minBedrooms=3&includeSSTC=true&_includeSSTC=on&pageNumber=1&fromSummary=true&backToListURL=%2Fproperty-for-sale%2Ffind.html%3FlocationIdentifier%3DREGION%255E597%26minPrice%3D550000%26maxPrice%3D600000%26maxDaysSinceAdded%3D14%26minBedrooms%3D3%26includeSSTC%3Dtrue%26_includeSSTC%3Don I appreciate this may not have appeared on your radar, but my experience is anything half decent above £500K is being SSTC very quickly. Obviously that is different to sold, and the prices may not be realised, but I'm guessing here they must be getting very close to asking if they are posting SSTC after the 1st weekend. Which property was dramatically underpriced, i'd be interested to know there's not much that gets underpriced in Harpenden much less dramatically underpriced.

I guess the London effect has always been there, it just seems very strong at the moment. Its not necessarily that people can't afford the next house, peole move downwards and sideways as well as upwards, there is just a dreadful shortage of decent houses coming on to the market combined with very strong demand, the perfect recipe to drive up prices, and the prices have gone up very rapidly in the last 2-3 months some properties are even exceeding peak autumn 2007 levels which i find completley astounding. The attitude is that if a purchaser is lost no problem re-market and go for a higher price which has happened on 3 or 4 properties.

Don't know to much about the St Albans market but prices are rising fast in nearby Harpenden. Anything half decent coming onto the market gets snapped up within days, weekend mass viewing and then generally sold by the following Monday/Tuesday. I have heard of people putting in asking price offfers even before they have viewed, and bidding wars taking place. Only fly in the ointment is if people want to stay in the area they are finding it difficult to compete with the buyers coming in from London, net result lots of sold STC and incomplete chains with the EA's getting nervous. Don't really know what to make of it maybe the old adage holds true, something is worth whatever someone else is prepared to pay for it or maybe a fool and there money......