More sellers reducing asking prices
Monday, 15 August 2011 2:55 PM
Two out of every five current property sellers have reduced their asking price since placing their house on the market, according to new research out today.
According to property portal Zoopla.co.uk, more sellers have reduced the asking price of their home than at any time in the last year.
Research showed that 39 per cent of all properties currently for sale in Britain have had their asking prices reduced at least once since coming onto the market, up from 37 per cent three months ago, and well ahead of the 32 per cent one year ago.
Even properties over £1 million, where the market has been most resilient, have seen more asking price reductions.
Of all £1 million-plus properties on the market, 27 per cent have had their price reduced at least once, up from 25 per cent three months ago and 22 per cent one year ago.
And the north-south gap continues to widen in the property market. Sellers in the North are being forced to reduce asking prices by much more than their counterparts in the South. Northern towns and cities dominate the list of places with the highest average price reductions.
Sellers in Bolton are suffering the most, having been forced to reduce the original asking price by 8.6 per cent on average.
London has the lowest proportion of price-reduced homes in the UK (32.4 per cent), a figure representative of its detachment from the rest of the market.
Meanwhile, in Stockport, nearly half (47.8 per cent) of all properties for sale have been reduced in price since coming onto the market, closely followed by Huddersfield (46.3 per cent) and Chesterfield (45.8 per cent).
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