Nervous first time buyers too cash-strapped to get on the property ladder. Stamp duty pricing Baby Boomers out of downsizing. Working-age people fleeing the country in droves.
The result? A perfect storm created by the Labour government that is battering our housing market and creating a ‘house price Armageddon’ (or should that be Starmergeddon), according to the Daily Mail’s City Editor, Alex Brummer.
No wonder internet forums are littered with horror stories of people being unable to sell their homes.
Here four home owners describe the stress of no viewings, sales collapsing at the 11th hour and months of mounting expenses – sometimes while being separated from family – and how desperate measures are needed to save the market before it’s too late.
We’ve had just one viewing in over a year
Sue Angus, 67, is a retired nurse and member of the Chinook Justice Campaign. Her first husband, Major Gary Sparks, was one of 29 people killed in the RAF Chinook crash on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994. She and second husband Tim, 70, who still works part-time in the motor industry, are trying to sell their home in a village near Basingstoke to move nearer her daughters. Sue says:
Since putting our lovely four-bedroom, four-bathroom period home on the market in January 2025, we’ve had just one viewing, despite dropping the price twice by about £50,000 each time. It’s now for sale at £995,000.
When it first went on the market for £1.1million, we chose the lower of the three valuations we’d had as we wanted to be realistic.
Sue Angus and her husband Tim say their lives are ‘on hold’ as they need to sell their home to move nearer her daughters
Their old posting house in a village near Basingstoke, Hampshire, has had just one viewing in over a year
Being retired, we’re fortunate that we’ve no pressing need to move for work or school catchment areas. At the same time, with each month that passes, my husband and I are missing out on starting a new life up in Yorkshire, where we’ll be close to my two daughters and grandchildren.
Esme, who’s 39, lives in Darlington with her husband and children, aged eight and five, and Lucy, 34, has recently moved to Manchester with her husband and baby for his work. The idea of being several hundred miles away from them (my son is in Canada) was unthinkable, so when Lucy put her London home on the market a year ago, we did the same.
She endured the stress of three buyers pulling out, and living apart from her husband after he moved north to start his new job while she stayed in London. It eventually sold last November, thank goodness, and they were reunited as a family.
Meanwhile, ours is still on the market. We’re certainly not greedy, but we bought it in 2014 for £750,000 and have spent a fortune on a new kitchen, windows and general improvements.
We’re now on our second agent, who has said the same as the original one: ‘It’s a beautiful house, in a beautiful village, perfect for a growing family or someone downsizing from one of the many enormous properties nearby.’ So, where are they all? A couple from Clapham were our only viewers last summer, but wanted a bigger garden.
The agent mentioned that Labour’s VAT on school fees has affected people moving up the property ladder. When they’ve got to find tens of thousands more to put their children through school, it means shelving plans to move.
They keep telling us: ‘Don’t panic, spring’s coming and summer after that – it will pick up!’ But we’ve been through one spring and summer and are no nearer to selling it.
Life is on hold while we play this waiting game. We’re missing out on making precious memories with our grandchildren. As my children and I know all too well from losing their father, you never know what’s around the corner.
We need to downsize to top up our pension pot and pay care fees
Hospitality laundry owner Claire Nicholas, 54, and her husband Craig, 60, a retired computer programmer, put their five-bed, five-bathroom home in Chippenham, Wiltshire (connells.co.uk), on the market in April 2025 – and have had just a handful of viewings. Claire says:
‘This will sell quickly!’ were the agent’s exact words when we put our gorgeous home – a 300-year-old cloth mill – on the market. Four months later, when we’d only had three viewings, he’d completely changed his tune. Now, almost a year on, we’ve reluctantly dropped the price from £850,000 to £775,000 and the only viewers interested in making an offer – a family with young children – can’t sell their own home.
Moving will be a huge wrench as we bought it in 2012 and transformed it into a fabulous family home. But Craig and I are rattling around now our daughters, Charlotte, 26, and Ella, 23, have left.
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Claire Nicholas has had to slash the asking price of her house by £75,000 to try and tempt potential buyers
Her five-bedroom house in Chippenham, Wiltshire, has been on the market since April last year
Downsizing will free up equity to pay off a chunk of the mortgage, boost our pension pots and contribute to the care of Craig’s father, who has dementia.
We’d also help our daughters with homes of their own. The eldest and her partner have stretched themselves to buy their first property, and the youngest says she won’t ever be able to afford to buy, which is why we want to help.
It’s true what they say about this housing market – the ripples affect everyone. Our house is a cracker, with oodles of character and history, in a beautiful part of Chippenham and only ten minutes from the train station with a one-hour journey to London.
On Christmas Day I raised a tearful toast to what I thought would be the last one here. Now, I doubt that will be the case. What will it take for this government to wake up and acknowledge the chain of problems they’ve created, and help get this dire property market moving again? We urgently need them to start backing businesses just like mine. After all, everything starts with business owners.
When we hire staff, we pay them, give rises, bonuses and promotions, enabling them to get mortgages, buy houses and upgrade.
There needs to be a stamp duty break across the board; there’s no point incentivising first-time buyers unless you offer it to all other price brackets in tandem.
Our home is more than worth its price tag and I refuse to give it away just because of the ridiculous economic climate we’re in, with a government that fails to support hard-working people.
I’m trying to be optimistic that we’ll finally get a sale this year. But if we’re still in our house this time next year, at least we’ll have one more family Christmas together here.
This Government has ruined the market… and my wellbeing
Alfie Ezekiel, 69, is former chief operating officer of a furniture manufacturer. His luxury, two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment at Royal Connaught Park in Bushey, Hertfordshire (benjaminstevens.co.uk), has been on the market since November 2024. Alfie says:
My health is suffering immeasurably because of the stress and worry of not being able to sell the apartment I bought with my partner for £520,000 in 2015.
Sadly, she and I have split up and need to sell in order to go our separate ways. For now, there’s the added stress of having to remain in the apartment together, me sleeping in the spare room.
Finances are another concern as we’ve had to reduce the price twice and the property is now on the market for £435,000 – 22 per cent less than we paid for it.
Alfie Ezekiel says his health is suffering due to the stress of trying to sell this two-bed apartment
He’s currently sleeping in the spare bedroom as he and his partner have split up – but neither has anywhere else to go
I’m desperate to move to Essex to start a new life close to my children and grandchildren. I feel like I’m a prisoner in my own home with my life on hold.
When we bought here, it was an exclusive development of around 300 homes. But the developers got greedy and built an additional 300, which has wiped the value from ours. There are simply too many flats and apartments on the market, which is one reason they’re so hard to sell.
I’ve seen the property market stagnate on three occasions in my lifetime, but nothing as bad as its current state. The only way markets move is with first-time buyers coming in. The Conservatives had the right idea with a stamp duty break to stimulate it. Stamp duty is outrageous and is absolutely destroying the market. People can’t afford it at a time when taxes and the cost of living are at an all time high.
Labour has got to do something to get the property market moving. Then again, they don’t seem to want people to be aspirational.
We accepted an offer a year ago only for the buyer to pull out within days of securing their mortgage, no doubt spooked by the inflated figures. We got another offer last October, but they then pulled out. We’ve now had 25 viewings, four since the start of this year, but no offers.
Having worked for 50 years and raised a family during my 32-year marriage, I’m desperate to slow down and enjoy life. Instead, this situation is making me unwell and I feel incredibly down. My hope is someone will come along soon and see all the wonderful benefits of living here that we’ve enjoyed.
There’s a pool, gym, 24-hour security and car park. The grounds are fabulous for walking and playing with my grandkids, and it’s just 17 minutes by train to Euston. A major issue is this government doesn’t want anyone to have aspirations to better their lives or homes. They are taxing us so much, people are too fearful to spend – even those who have the money.
And if you can’t sell, try doing it yourself
With little interest in their Welsh farmhouse after almost a year on the market, businesswoman Nikki Channon, 57, and husband Jay Mulvey, 55, took matters into their own hands. Nikki says:
Our gorgeous three-bedroom farmhouse – complete with three holiday cottages and an acre of land – went on the market in early spring 2024 for £1.2million.
We’d had 15 wonderful years there since buying it in 2009 and created two businesses. Jay runs mountain biking holidays, while I marketed the cottages for dog-friendly breaks, which I’m still involved with. But it was time for a new adventure in Spain.
Nikki Channon and husband Jay Mulvey got so sick of estate agents they took matters into their own hands and sold their Welsh farmhouse themselves on social media
The three-bedroom farmhouse – complete with three holiday cottages and an acre of land – went on the market in early spring 2024 for £1.2million
But after no luck, Nikki posted the property online on Purplebricks in January last year and shared the listing on social media – and they were able to complete the sale by December
Little did we know it would be almost two years after putting the house up for sale before we could begin life in Andalucia.
The agent warned us the market was slow due to the 2024 General Election and the Budget.
Part of the problem is that the Welsh Labour government has made it unappealing for anyone to own holiday lets by abolishing the furnished holiday let (FHL) tax regime.
It then hit owners with a combination of hard-to-meet 182-day letting rules (self-catering holiday properties must be available to let for at least 252 days and actually occupied for at least 182 days per year to qualify for non-domestic business rates rather than higher council tax premiums), massively increased council tax on ‘second homes’ (even if they are next door, as ours were!) and a proposed tourism tax… the list just goes on and on.
In January 2025, I’d had enough and vowed to sell it myself, using my marketing skills and social media to find the right audience.
I paid online agent Purplebricks a flat fee of £795 in order to advertise the property online, and then began posting links to it on lots of selected Facebook groups aimed at prospective buyers who are looking for rural lifestyle businesses or multi-generational homes.
After achieving more than 70,000 viewings on property website Rightmove, and receiving emails from around 50 interested parties, we decided to host an open day last July – and accepted an offer as a result.
The sale completed in December for just short of the asking price – saving us 1.5 per cent plus VAT in estate agency fees.
We’ve just bought a beautiful six-bedroom villa in Andalucia with the proceeds of the sale – and when I admire the views of the Malaga coastline and the mountains from our veranda, the stress of the UK property market is a world away.
Jay has transferred his mountain biking business to Spain and I’ll be running fully catered boutique-style retreats here too (uniqueretreatsspain.com).
This might never have happened if I hadn’t turned estate agent myself.
