130 Homes Across Culcheth, Lowton, Croft and Birchwood Have Been for Sale Over Four Months. Why?

You've seen them. The board that's been up since spring. The listing that keeps reappearing in your Rightmove alerts. We counted them across Culcheth, Lowton, Glazebury, Croft, Birchwood and Fearnhead last week, and the number is bigger than you'd think. Here's what's gone wrong, and what to do if it's your house.

The numbers.

Of the homes currently for sale with other agents across Culcheth, Lowton, Glazebury, Croft, Birchwood and Fearnhead that have been listed for more than three months, 132 have now passed 16 weeks. Nearly 60 of them have cut the asking price at least once. Around 20 have been on the market for more than a year, and one home in Culcheth has been for sale for over three years. A further 33 had a sale agreed at some point this year and then lost it.

Why four months is the line.

We looked at how long homes in these six areas actually take to sell last week. The typical home finds a buyer in 45 days. Four in ten go Sold STC within a month. So a home that's been on the market for 16 weeks has taken more than three times as long as normal, and the longer it goes on, the less likely it is to sell at all without a change of some sort. Sixteen weeks is also, not by coincidence, roughly where a lot of sole agency agreements end.

A home that's been on the market for 16 weeks has taken more than three times as long as normal.

Where they are.

Lowton has the most, which matches what we found on selling times, where Lowton sits a little behind Culcheth, Croft and Birchwood. Glazebury has the longest typical wait of the six areas, and it's not explained by the type or price of the homes there. Birchwood, by contrast, has the fewest long-term listings relative to its size. Nearly half of Birchwood's sales this year were agreed within a month.

What's gone wrong, in order of how often we see it.

The price was set for the market the seller hoped for. This is the big one. A home gets its biggest audience in its first fortnight on Rightmove. Price it 10% above what the evidence supports and that audience looks, compares, and moves on. The reduction comes six weeks later, by which point the listing looks tired and the buyers who'd have paid a fair price have bought something else. Nearly 60 of the 132 have reduced at least once, and several have reduced twice. We wrote about this in October, and the pattern hasn't changed.
The photos were taken on the wrong day, or the wrong year. It's November. A listing that went live in April with the magnolia in flower now looks like a home that's been for sale since April. If a home has been on for more than three months, new photos are the cheapest fix there is.
It's a slower type of home, marketed like a quick one. Across the six areas, bungalows typically take 57 days. Detached homes take around 60. Anything over £500,000 takes 75 or more. Those homes need a bigger, more patient search for the right buyer, and often need showing to people who aren't searching the village name at all. Put them on the portal and wait, and you'll wait a long time.
The sale fell through and nobody reset. Thirty-three homes across the six areas had a buyer this year and lost them. When that happens the listing usually just flips back to Available, with the same photos and the same price, and the market reads it as damaged goods. A fall-through should be treated as a relaunch.
Nobody's talking. The seller doesn't know how many viewings there have been, what the feedback was, or what the agent plans to do differently. Sixteen weeks of silence is how a home ends up at 60 weeks.

Sixteen weeks of silence is how a home ends up at 60 weeks.

What it costs to wait.

Beyond the obvious, a home that's been on the market for a year has usually been through a reduction or two, and buyers know it. The offers that come in on a long-term listing are lower than they'd have been on a fresh one at the right price, because the buyer can see the history. Waiting for the market to come to you has, this year, meant selling for less.

If this is your house.

Three questions to ask your agent this week:

How many viewings in the last month, and what did each say?
What's sold nearby since we listed, and at what price, not what they were asking?
What are you going to change, and when?

If the answer to the third one is "nothing, let's give it a bit longer", that's your answer. If your agreement with them has run its course, you're free to get a second opinion. We'll tell you honestly whether it's the price, the presentation or the marketing, and we'll show you the sales evidence rather than just an opinion.

If the answer is "nothing, let's give it a bit longer", that's your answer.

If you're buying.

A long-term listing isn't automatically a bad home. Often it's a good home that was priced wrong, and the seller is now a lot more realistic than they were in the spring. Anything past three months is worth an offer below asking, with the evidence to back it up.

Call Sam on 01925 767000 or email sam@courtyardhomes.co.uk if you'd like a second opinion on a home that's stuck.

Figures from Rightmove market data for WA3 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 and WA2 0, checked 3 November 2026, covering homes listed with agents other than Courtyard Homes. Selling times from Courtyard Homes analysis of sales agreed 3 November 2025 to 2 November 2026. New-build developments listed as multiple plots have been excluded. No individual home is identified. This is general information, not advice about any individual property.