HOUSE & HOME

from The Visitor Magazine Issue 466 September 2022

TASTE OF THE WEST

Home sellers reducing asking prices by £75,000 to secure a buyer as market starts to cool

MARKET ANALYSIS by property purchasing specialist, HBB Solutions, has found that the pandemic property market boom is causing many home sellers to enter the market with a little too much enthusiasm when pricing their property, causing them to reduce their asking prices expectations by 20% or £75,000.

HBB Solutions looked at those homes currently on the market who have chosen to drop their asking price expectations and by what margin they’ve chosen to do so.

The research shows that across Britain, home sellers who are opting to drop their asking price are doing so by 19.8% on average, reducing from £380,637 to £305,353 - a reduction of £75,284.

The regions in which sellers are most frequently forced to reduce their asking price are the South East and London, where local reductions account for 24% and 14% respectively of all property asking price reductions across Britain.

At 10%, the North West is also home to some of the highest levels of homes that are repricing having already entered the market at a higher asking price.

However, it’s sellers in the North East that are being forced to apply the biggest asking price reductions, typically coming down by 20.5%, followed by the West Midlands (20.4%), Yorkshire & Humber (20.2%), and Wales (20.2%).

While London’s home sellers may be one of the most likely to reduce their asking price, they are only doing so by 19%, the most marginal reduction of all regions.

Managing Director of HBB Solutions, Chris Hodgkinson, commented:

“For quite some time now, we’ve seen report after report of how the housing market is booming and house prices are climbing to dizzying new heights. So it’s understandable that sellers entering the market may be doing so with a little too much enthusiasm when it comes to pricing their home.

The consequence? They’re finding that even in a sellers market, an overpriced home will always struggle to sell and the inevitable course of action required to secure a buyer is to lower their asking price expectations.

What we’re also almost certainly seeing is the first signs of a cooling market, as the economic pressure of rising inflation and the increasing costs associated with mortgage rates, in particular, start to dent home buyer confidence and the sums they are willing to pay.

A picture can paint £80,000 in value

Leading estate agent media provider, Giraffe360, has revealed that the nation’s estate agents could be selling themselves, and their sellers short, by underpresenting their properties when it comes to the number of images provided in their online property listings.

According to property portal giant, Rightmove, the magic number is a minimum of seven photos to showcase a property to prospective buyers, putting your best photo first in a bid to attract attention.

However, analysis of current market listings by Giraffe360 shows that not all agents are meeting this requirement when it comes to showcasing their for sales stock.

Across England, the average property listing has 15 images, but 5% of all listings are advertised with less than seven photos.

This climbs as high as 10% of all listings in London, with the North East also home to an above average number of homes advertised with less than seven photos (56%).

Why does it matter in a market where buyer interest far outweighs the level of stock available? Well Giraffe360’s analysis also shows that homes with more images command a higher price.

Across England as a whole, the average asking price of a home with seven or more images comes in at £300,000. Those with less than seven images command an average asking price of just

Shutterstock.com/Sirtravelalot.

£220,000 - £80,000 less.

In the South East, this asking price gap is at its highest, with homes with less than seven images listed for £181,000 less on average compared to those with seven or more.

This asking price gap also exceeds £100,000 in the South West (£135,000), Yorkshire and the Humber (£120,000) and the West Midlands (£45,000).

Giraffe360 CEO, Mikus Opelts, commented:

“In the modern-day property market, the multimedia used for the online portrayal of your property is the most important aspect of your property listing. So neglecting this aspect can be costly, whether it be via the quality or volume of photos, as you’re simply unlikely to attract the same level of attention from potential buyers.

Despite this, as many as five percent of all listings on the current market have less than seven photos to showcase a property and our analysis shows that these are also listed for a substantially lower asking price. The driving factor behind this is almost certainly an air of inconsistency on the part of the listing agent. Lower value homes may be smaller and therefore provide less photo opportunities, however, it’s also fair to say they are allocated less time and love by agents, who tend to focus on showcasing their higher value stock to its best abilities.

At the very least, every property should be afforded the same level of attention and given the same consistent level of digital representation as those in higher price brackets.”