–Rightmove: UK Sep House Asking Prices Down 1.1% m/m; Up 2.6% y/y
LONDON (MNI) – UK homeowners are cutting their asking prices, with
prices dropping for the third month in a row, according to Rightmove’s
September survey.
Rightmove’s is the first of the higher profile September surveys.
The raft of August house price surveys showed a mix of monthly rises and
falls but the Rightmove survey suggests there is a clear downtrend in
asking prices.
Rightmove said new sellers cut average asking prices by 1.1% in
September and asking prices were down 3.4% in the three months through
September. Prices were still up 2.6% in the year to September.
The Rightmove survey suggested housing market activity appears to
be drying up. In September, an average 26,087 new properties per week
were put on the market, the lowest level since April and down 11% on
August.
Rightmove, a property website, said while the supply of properties
for sales has fallen buyers ready to go ahead with purchases were “still
an endangered species.”
Another house asking price survey, by Hometrack, showed prices in
August fell by 0.3% on the month, their largest decline since April and
the second consecutive monthly fall.
The Rightmove survey shows a price decline of 0.6% on the month in
July, a 1.7% fall in August and then the 1.1% drop in September.
Miles Shipside, commercial director at Rightmove, said the
dwindling supply of properties coming to market may reflect in part the
end of the boost from the abolition of home information packs.
“We could be seeing the start of a new norm, with the number of new
properties (coming) to the market curtailed by more sober potential
sellers unwilling or unable to come to market in this phase of the
economic recovery,” Shipside said.
–London newsroom: 4420 7862 7491; email drobinson@marketnews.com
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