Buying or selling? The property business isn't plain sailing.

Contrary to popular belief, Glastonbury houses aren’t just grotty witches’ grottos and patchouli drenched hippy communes, and sadly not all of them have views overlooking the levels, the Tor or the Abbey, but there are some fantastic properties to live in, and not just quirky ones either: in Glastonbury itself you can find elegant town houses, quaint cottages, flats, bungalows and maisonettes, while out of town there are some lovely converted barns, farmhouses and the like; new builds, old builds, modern or in need of tarting up (or even serious renovation) there is no shortage of choice. 

House prices in the West Country have fallen for the second consecutive month according to a survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.  They say the downward trend in prices continues to be driven by a mixture of increased supply and a moderation of demand by buyers.  At the moment, according to popular property website www.findaproperty.com, the average house price in Glastonbury is currently around £208,000, with for example a 4-bed house averaging 341,000 and a 1 bed flat 107,000.

One local estate agent is obviously feeling the pinch in the current economic climate, as they have closed their Glastonbury branch in the past few months and are consolidating their local business in Street.

Another admitted last week that many people in the area are having to drop their asking rate by up to 10% in order to shift their property, and that the slump in the market could possibly last for another 4 years.  They believe that currently there just aren't enough first time buyers coming into the market to kick start business, making properties further up the chain less likely to shift.  Meanwhile some properties bought in the past 2 or 3 years are actually worth considerably less than when they were purchased.   

While this sounds gloomy and depressing, in many cases a seller will be looking to buy another home, which will also probably have decreased in value (and the more expensive the property the larger the fall) so the knock on affect isn’t actually as bad as it at first appears.  Homeowners who bought their property before or at the start of the boom are unlikely to be as badly affected as more recent purchasers, as the rise in prices they saw in the early years means that although they may feel some pain at the noticeable drop in value of their home within the past few years, overall they will have made money and those lucky enough to be in possession of one for around 7 or 8 years they could see their property worth nearly twice what it was when they bought it.

For an idea of the properties currently available in the  area, check out the property section of our site, or alternatively if you are in the market to buy or sell a house, the likes of Ralph Bending, Tor Estates, Cooper and Tanner and Ian Jeanes are all on hand to help you.

If you are selling, it’s worth getting valuations from more than one agent and make sure the one you choice is prepared to work for you, and if possible get recommendations from other people who have recently used them.   You need to be realistic about what value your home has; if it is priced too high it may never sell, and after it has been hanging around for a long time it will lose its selling appeal.  And if you are buying there are deals to be found on new builds, while in a buyer’s market there are good opportunities for haggling.