Almost four in ten properties listed on Rightmove have had their asking price reduced at least once. It says the number of price cuts is the highest at this time of year since 2012.
A separate report, from Your Move, on actual house prices says that annual inflation has slowed to almost zero, and that the pace of growth is the lowest for five years – also since 2012.
This morning Rightmove said that almost 38% of existing listings have had price cuts, the highest proportion at this time of year for five years.
For those who have cut their asking price at least once, the average size of reduction between first marketing price and what is now being asked is 6.3%.
Analysis of properties that actually sold last month shows that they too had cut initial asking prices to final asking prices by an average of 6.3%.
Meanwhile, new listings in October and early November have shown a dip in asking prices, taking the average new asking price down 0.8% on a monthly basis to £311,043.
This figure is still up 1.8% annually, compared with the 1.4% recorded in October.
There was only one region in England and Wales where new asking prices rose – in Yorkshire & Humber where they rose by 0.6% over the month.
New asking prices have fallen with the greatest thump in the north-east (down 5%).
In parts of London, monthly falls have contributed to large annual decreases – for example, new asking prices are down 13% in Islington compared with a year ago.
Properties are taking one day longer than in September to reach the accepted offer stage, at 64 in October, down from 65 a year before.
Stock remained flat, though, with an average of 60 properties, including SSTC, per agency branch.
Miles Shipside, director and housing market analyst for Rightmove, said the market was “more challenging … with the largest proportion of sellers on the market having reduced their initial asking prices at this time of year since 2012”.
In a separate report, Your Move says average sale prices were flat for the second month in a row and that annual house price inflation has almost juddered to a halt.
Your Move says annual house price inflation slowed from 1.7% to 0.8% between September and October.
This is the fourth consecutive month of declines in annual house price inflation, and the slowest rate of growth in house prices for over five years, since March 2012.
The average house price was £298,438 for October, the agent said.
Transactions are down 5% in the first nine months of 2017 compared with the same period last year.
Oliver Blake, managing director of Your Move and Reeds Rains, said: “It’s a challenging time for the market, but outside London many regions are showing some resilience.
“We have yet to see how this will change in the months to come, particularly following the Autumn Budget when it has been rumoured the Chancellor will make announcements that may impact the housing market.
“The good news, however, is that housing is clearly on the political agenda and any action that supports buyers and sellers – and positive movement in the market – has to be encouraged.”
Largely due to the agents overvaluing in order to secure the instructions, all coupled with the owners having access to the internet and thinking that comparable properties on the market justify their high expectations. Time for the industry to ‘get real’ and value competently.
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Whilst I agree in the main with your view, I wonder how much of it is the Agent ‘overvaluing’, and how much the vendor’s choice of Asking Price.
There aren’t many Agents who will refuse an instruction – especially those who run their businesses by The Numbers Game – if it’s a few grand OTT. The old mantra of ‘You can’t sell it if it’s not on your books’ is what I would suggest be the majority live and die by.
In terms of your last sentence that, I’m afraid, you will never see happen. There always has been and will always be those whose “listing skill” is down to highest price/lowest fee/combination of both.
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I have to concur, which is regrettably nothing more than a further negative reflection on the majority in our profession today.
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Only 40%, blimey! With all the overvaluing that I’m seeing, I’m surprised that it’s not WAAAY higher…
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I find the whole current price reduction “race” a complete scam on customers. The “bigger” agents are simply running down the market as they have to sell x amount of stock to survive, forgetting about what they valued the property for and forgetting any ignoring buyer feedback about if it was/is price they felt the issue was or the fact it just wasnt the right house. Personally, I only ever recommend price reductions if the vendor wants to try slightly higher for an agreed 2-4 weeks, sticking to my original valuation. This is now more difficult because the mainstream agents are pushing down prices making others look expensive. Poor advice from the outset and even poorer advice during marketing = poor agents who cannot “sell” properties, but they still get the listings and still get sold boards, so who is right ???? morals over business/profit/existence…..
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“Almost four in ten properties listed on Rightmove have had their asking price reduced at least once.”
Would Rightmove care to comment on what percentage of this ‘four in ten properties’ are multiple listings – so we can see the correct figure?
As an experiment I’ve quickly checked the numbers in the wee patch of land I am based.
Out of 146 ‘reductions’, 33 (22.6%) of them are multiple listings.
Anyone else care to crunch their respective numbers?
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Reduce prices?
Nonsense! – We have had a property on Multi for 12 months and we along with 3 other agents have not sold it. So the new agent on-board has managed to talk the sell into increasing the price by £25,000.
That’s the future, increase them all if they do not sell 😉
FYI we disinstructed them this morning.
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