Top-end priced UK properties may take four times longer to leave market
Property sellers in Britain asking for too high a price who have to reduce it to make a sale take four times as long to sell than those listing an accurate initial asking price.
According to new research from estate agent Savills, 33 per cent of sales required the asking price to be slashed to leave the market, alongside the initial price being lowered two or more times in 11 per cent of sales.
The estate agent said if a seller is accurate in their listed asking price, they can expect to sell the property within 28 days.
However, according to Savills, a price cut pushes that up to 100 days, and two cuts can hike the time it takes to reach an offer up to almost five and a half months.
Lucian Cook, residential research director at Savills said this data “tells us that the more you misprice the property, the more protracted the sale process will be.”
“What this reveals is how important it is to get your price right. We know that everybody’s natural inclination is to go to the top end of their range of values, because this is your biggest asset,” Cook said.
Sale price dip after asking price slash
Savills found that property sellers who are forced into slashing their asking price have to trim an average of 4.4 per cent each time, and over 20 per cent needed to cut their initial price once to make a sale.
Sellers at the upper end of the scale who had to slash their initial price by four times saw the sale price decrease by 15.4 per cent in total.
This follows the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday revealing that house prices in the City fell again in the year to May and are down by 3.7 per cent to £545,000.
Properties in London’s wealthiest areas continued to suffer the most from the market slowdown, including house prices plummeting by 22.8 per cent in Westminster and by 10.7 per cent in Kensington and Chelsea.