Asking prices slide as sellers show signs of desperation
News Category: Industry News
Published: 16-Aug-2010
Asking prices for property new to the market have dropped by 1.7% over the last month – an average of £4,091 – as over-supply coincides with holidaying buyers.
Rightmove said this morning that the price fall affects 117,000 new properties added to its site so far this month – a surprisingly high total and the highest figure Rightmove has recorded for August since 2007, just as the market peaked.
The drop follows a 0.6% fall in asking prices last month. Until July, Rightmove had seen only rises in asking prices. The average asking price is now £232,241 – still astonishingly high compared with ‘actual’ data from Halifax, Nationwide and the Land Registry, which are currently quoting under £170,000. Asking prices peaked in June at £237,767.
Miles Shipside, commercial director of Rightmove, said: “No one really wants to come to market in August unless they have to.
“It shows these new sellers have a compelling need to sell, as they have lopped over £4,000 off the average asking price.
“Those who marketed earlier in the year but have yet to find a buyer may have to do a bit of pruning of their own to beat this new competition.”
He said that current market conditions resemble those of the second half of 2008: “Then, prices fell by 7.1% between August and the end of the year, as buyers unwilling or unable to proceed left agents with unsold stock levels similar to those currently being recorded by Rightmove.”
He said the average agent’s office now has 79 properties on its books, with new stock coming on to Rightmove’s books at an average of 29,220 per week.
The figure compares with mortgage approvals of less than half that number – currently an average of 13,852 a week.
“The imbalance between mortgage and stock availability remains painfully clear,” said Shipside.
He added that pent-up buyer demand is illustrated by record daily activity on the site, with 25.4 million pages viewed on August 10.
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