Home sellers cut asking prices on 3,000 properties a day

Home sellers reduced asking prices on 3,000 properties a day

Home sellers lowered asking prices on more than 3,000 properties a day on average in Britain during September, according to figures from Rightmove shared exclusively with the BBC.

The property website said this was the highest monthly total in 15 years, driven in part by an oversupply of homes on the market and some sellers setting unrealistic expectations.

The share of listed homes that eventually had a price cut peaked in 2023 and has stayed relatively high since then.

Property portals say buyers are now having to be selective, with many operating on tight budgets as mortgage rates have climbed to three-year highs.

"Once a home has been on the market for a while and then has a price reduction, some buyers start asking questions, even when there is nothing wrong with the property," said Colleen Babcock of Rightmove.

"In a market with so much choice, first impressions matter."

Rightmove data showed the average price reduction was nearly 7% - the equivalent of almost £21,000 taken off a typically valued home.

Its figures showed that homes with a price reduction usually took 119 days to find a buyer, compared with 39 days for those listed at one price.

The proportion of listed homes that had a price reduction was 34% last month, only a little below the recent peak of 36% recorded in September 2023.

Rival property portal Zoopla said buyers were in the driving seat and were becoming more cautious and selective about the properties they viewed.

With mortgage rates at a three-year high, Zoopla said buyers needed to keep monthly mortgage payments affordable.

So, while the number of homes for sale was up 5% in September compared with a year earlier, the number of sales agreed had dropped by 9% over the same period, its figures showed.

September also tends to be the month with the most cuts to asking prices, as sellers often want to complete a sale by the end of the year.

Zoopla's data showed that a quarter of newly listed homes in September had already been listed for sale in the previous year. Six in 10 were returning at a lower asking price.

The problem for sellers was that these homes were taking longer to sell.

Properties that needed a price reduction were half as likely to find a buyer within the usual three-month timeframe, according to Richard Donnell, executive director of research at Rightmove.

Sellers who have contacted the BBC's Your Voice have pointed to the difficulties caused by the large number of homes on the market, and extra problems for those selling leasehold properties in England.

One seller, who was selling his late father's home in south Wales, said: "The market is dead. Lots for sale; no-one buying. No-one thinks it's going to get easier."

Tarah Lourens, chief operating officer at Rightmove, said "emotional" factors influenced how sellers priced a home, as they "put a value on the time and money they have invested in their home".

But she said buyers simply looked at everything they could afford within their budget.

Agents said valuations now drew on huge amounts of data. Craig Webster, of Tiger Sales and Lettings in Blackpool, said getting the initial price right when a home first came to market was crucial.

"That's when you have the greatest opportunity to capture the attention of active buyers," he said.

Katie Griffin, from surveyors Sawdye and Harris in Devon, said that having to adjust a price could ultimately lead a seller to accept less than even a revised asking price.

"The property may already have been online for several months and buyers can start asking why it has not sold," she said.

But Andrew Boast, chief executive of SAM Conveyancing, said sellers might still not be losing out if they had negotiated aggressively when buying the home and had seen it rise in value while they owned it.

Donnell, from Zoopla, said the system gave sellers a guide to pricing. As a result, homes sold at a faster rate than anywhere else in Britain.

His data showed that 74% of homes in Scotland listed during April, May and June sold within three months, compared with 30% in London.

He said that higher prices, stamp duty and some people - including landlords - not needing to sell meant that listed homes were less likely to sell in southern England.