Estate Agents’ List Of Unsold Properties Grows

The number of houses waiting unsold on the books of estate agents is rising as sellers refuse to drop their price and struggle to find a buyer as a result.Property listing website Rightmove have calculated that estate agents have an average of 64 properties for sale where it was 54 a year ago. In a similar way, properties are taking 93 days to sell on average – compared with 78 days a year ago.This is wide fear that property prices may be about to tumble, but vendors are holding up the market with their refusal to drop their prices.Despite the rising number of properties on estate agents’ books, Rightmove said that the last four weeks have seen the lowest number of new listings since the start of 2005.Rightmove’s Miles Shipside:

“Most sellers obviously want to achieve as much as possible for their property, and traditionally they have chosen to test the market at an ambitious price in February, as they have plenty of time to adjust it down later.This is normally compounded by estate agents being eager to have fresh property on their books and sellers tempted to try a higher figure. Yet the current concerns in the capital’s financial sector appear to be restraining the traditionally high levels of seller and agent optimism normally seen at this time of year.”

Other figures from Rightmove show that asking prices in London have gone up by an average of £3,757 in the last month, in spite of the troubled stock market and tightening mortgage conditions.Hammersmith saw the biggest increase, with an average £23,589 increase in a month. Wandsworth saw a rise of £17,308, Hounslow £14,192, Ealing £13,038 and Camden £12,933.The other end of the housing spectrum in the capital saw a fall of £13,691 in asking prices in Hackney. Thus, asking prices in the Olympic borough are now about the same as they were a year ago.