‘It took four years and 183 viewings to sell my flat – then I made a loss'

Telegraph

18-05-2025

Buying a home is often a pivotal milestone. It can be an emotional anchor for those settling down and a way to signal their ascendancy into adulthood.
After decades of soaring house prices, many expect them to keep rising – so that a profit is guaranteed when they come to sell. But that is not always the case, especially for those who have not owned their home for long.
Katherine Ormerod, a writer and author, knows this better than anyone.
In 2016, she bought a house with her boyfriend, a 'tiny, tiny' flat in Kilburn, north London. Three years later, with a young child and pregnant again, the couple decided to put the flat back on the market. It was in immaculate condition, in Zone 2 and less than three minutes' walk to a Tube station, so – they figured – the buyers would come.
But it wasn't quite that simple. The property wouldn't budge. To make matters worse, lockdown hit a few months in, scuppering an initial offer.
It took four years and 183 house viewings to secure a buyer, a process that Ormerod describes as 'mental torture'.
When the sale finally happened in 2023, Ormerod and her partner technically banked a price £10,000 higher than they'd bought at. But this marginal increase was more than offset by fees, meaning when they did the maths, they were in the red.
'If you add up all the money, we obviously made a financial loss on the property,' she said. ' We paid stamp duty, we paid lawyer fees, we spent a lot on storage,' she explains.
In addition, they had to pay a punitively high mortgage rate for several months after a buyer fell through at the last minute, on top of paying rent on their new place.
Given the value of the flat grew by just 1.8pc over seven years, this was not enough to recoup the amount of money, or time, that they had pumped into the house. And it increased by far less than inflation, which averaged around 3.8pc per year in this period.
Ormerod calculates that the couple would have roughly broken even if they hadn't bought the flat, but had instead paid rent during this period, assuming they'd found a high-interest refuge for the funds they spent on a deposit (plus what they paid in mortgage interest and fees).
'There's no question that, for us, it was a really bad investment.'
Losses on losses
Ormerod, 41, is not alone. Last year, 91pc of people sold their UK homes for more than they paid, according to Hamptons. In other words, almost one tenth of sellers made a loss, nationally. That excludes people who made losses from fees and legal costs, like Ormerod, meaning the true proportion of loss-makers is likely higher.
The picture is even worse in London. Last year, 14pc of Londoners sold their property for less than what they bought it for, putting Ormerod in good company. Between 2016 and the end of 2024, the average London property increased in value by just 9pc, according to Land Registry data.
It's particularly bad for flats and maisonettes in London, which rose 3pc on average in that period. As such, flat owners are four times more likely than house owners nationally to sell at a loss, according to Hamptons.
This is having a knock-on effect on people's lives, says Lucian Cook, of Savills.
'One of the features of the recent housing market has been relatively weak numbers of those moving up a rung on the housing ladder. People have been living in their first and second homes for longer, often delaying a move up the ladder until it becomes a necessity.
'In part, that is because of the higher interest rate environment, but it also reflects their struggles in accumulating enough housing wealth to give them the confidence to do so.
'The issue has been particularly acute in London, where house price growth has been lower than elsewhere in the UK over the past nine years or so. That has meant the ability to trade up in the capital has been heavily dependent on their ability to pay down their mortgage debt.'
Last year, property returns in percentage terms hit the lowest point since 2015, when Hamptons' records began. They have steadily fallen since the peak in 2016, before the Brexit vote, when the average home sold at a 60pc premium.
Equity gains from property are getting smaller and taking longer to cash in, exacerbated by higher mortgage and transaction costs. The average homeowner has gained £91,820 in property value, equating to a 42pc profit on average over 8.9 years.
Sarah Coles, a personal finance adviser at Hargreaves Lansdown, says that it's worth remembering that not all home investments work out.
'In the UK people have come to think of property as something that generally tends to rise in price, so during those times when prices fall, it can feel discombobulating.'
She added selling at a loss is particularly 'unsettling' for first-time homeowners with little equity, and for older people downsizing, hoping to fund their retirement care.
Even the ultra-wealthy occasionally suffer the downsides of property investments. Singer, Ellie Goulding, reportedly made a loss on her £3m London town house post-divorce, while British mogul, Bobby Arora, recorded a 30pc loss on his luxury Belgravia property.
Stories like Ormerod's paint a bleak picture for the cohort of first-time buyers who bought in 2016 at the top of the market, particularly for those buying flats in London. Ormerod says she chose to speak publicly because so few people talk about 'ballsing it up'.
It was a painful experience that she says others need to be more aware of.
'People talk about buying and selling as if it's this really normal, straightforward and light-hearted thing. And actually, for so many people, it's much more like being on the precipice of financial longevity and potential ruin.'
Though financially, she did survive, she says she went through an immeasurable mental tax.
Looking forward
Today, Ormerod reflects philosophically on the sale.
'I always try to stay positive and think, perhaps if we hadn't been putting that money into our mortgage every month, maybe we wouldn't have been saving it so consistently.'
She adds she feels privileged to have been in a position to buy a house at all.
Time has proven a healer too, and two years since they sold they are now considering buying again, although it could be tricky given they're both self-employed (which, she notes, makes securing a fresh mortgage from the bank more difficult).
But Ormerod says that she doesn't regret the loss-making sale, having given her the opportunity to raise her children in a dream (rented) home outside central London.
'It was worth every penny of heartache,' she says. 'Loss and gain are subjective.'