Asking prices for properties new to the market have dropped by 3.2%, Rightmove said this morning.
While it was the biggest monthly drop since December 2007, the huge gulf between asking prices and selling prices continues and currently stands at around £65,000. Rightmove’s average asking price of £229,379 compares with £164,919 quoted by Halifax and £164,381 quoted by Nationwide.
This is despite the fact that asking prices have fallen in four out of the last five months, according to Rightmove.
The site also reported an unseasonally high number of unsold properties and the longest-ever time on the market, now standing at over 100 days. The number of new sellers coming to the market per week has fallen, down by 9.1% over the last month. The total number of new properties being listed on Rightmove each week is now just over 24,000.
Commercial director Miles Shipside said: “Agents report that the Christmas slowdown has come early this year as both would-be buyers and sellers are adopting a ‘wait and see’ policy.”He added: “First-time buyers and buy-to-let investors both appear to have gone missing from estate agents’ books.“Perhaps they are keeping their hands in their pockets in case their budgets go further in a few months’ time.”
Shipside said the continuing mortgage drought was a major factor: “The Bank of England’s latest figures for mortgage approvals show that the ratio between new property supply and successful mortgage applications is still stuck at around two to one.“
The ongoing mis-match is helping to cause stagnation in the market.”
Meanwhile, the website Home, which tracks data from all the property portals, said that 95,335 properties had their asking prices cut last month – a 21-month high. It said that time on the market jumped nine days, to 118 days.
It put the current average asking price as almost identical to Rightmove’s at £229,521. The key difference is that Rightmove’s asking price is for properties new to the market, whilst Home averages the asking prices of all properties on the market.
