One in 10 homes on the market has reduced its price by 5%, reports Zoopla, the property website, following two and half years of boom and record-high increases.
As the market cools, the trend has been for sellers to accept discounted prices to complete a house sale. Rightmove, another property website, announced the largest pre-Christmas dip over the last four years, citing an average 2.1% drop. That puts the average asking price for a UK home at just over £359,000 in early December, some £7,850 less than in November. This is a percentage fall similar to that quoted by building society Halifax in November of 2.3%. Others report up to a 3% drop.
Taken in context, however, the average asking prices at the end 2022 are still over 5.5% higher than this time last year. Rightmove also reports an 11% increase in the number of homes for sale on its website compared with last December, predicting a more even balance between supply and demand next year.