Trying to sell your house? House-sellers are being forced to drop their prices – and the amount they’re cutting is rising
People trying to sell their homes are increasingly having to mark down their original asking price – and the amount they are dropping it by is going up.
Last month we heard that sellers in some London boroughs were having to drop prices by as much as 29 per cent, but new research suggests the issue is even more wide-spread – and the amounts are getting bigger.
On average, sellers are now reducing their asking price by more than £25,000 – a jump of £4,000 of 17 per cent since the start of the year, according to Zoopla.
Almost a third (29 per cent) of properties currently listed for sale on the portal have had their price reduced at least once since originally being listed – an increase of 0.43 per cent since start of 2016.
London certainly has its fair share of price cut-backs – as with the previous study, Kensington & Chelsea came out top, but this time around there is an even higher proportion of homes being marked down (33.3 per cent compared with 29 per cent). Homes in this borough were reduced on average by £137,421.
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Hammersmith & Fulham was also high on the list, with 32 per cent of asking prices being dropped – at an average of £81,460 – followed by Kingston upon Thames, were 29.7 per cent of homes were marked down.
The slowdown in the capital's prime market is no doubt to blame for this trend – but it was in the north of England where the largest proportion of asking prices were being cut.
Almost half of all properties listed in St Helens (43.7 per cent), Hartlepool (42.5 per cent) and Middlesbrough (40 per cent) were marked down. Also in the top 10 are Haverfordwest in Wales, and Great Yarmouth in East Anglia.
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Sellers in Barnet were forced to drop their asking prices by the biggest proportion – 10.8% on average amount – followed by Coventry (10.4 per cent) and Salford (10.4 per cent).
London as a whole had an average reduction percentage of 7.8 per cent – above the overall national average of 6.86 per cent.
Prices in Northampton, Milton Keynes and Maidenhead have been reduced the least with asking prices marked down by 4.5, 4.5 and 4.7 per cent respectively.