Central london Real Estate and Business

FOR every buyer looking for a home, there are 15 for sale, research has found.

The mortgage drought and higher interest rates have dramatically reduced the number of people looking for new homes and the average house price has fallen by almost £3,000 over the past five weeks.

The average house price in the UK is £239,564, a fall of 1.2 per cent. And the picture is bleaker for those trying to sell their home in the capital, where the average price fell £5,500-or l.4per cent - to £399,000. In Camden, the average sale price fell by £26,000 - 3.6 per cent- to £689,000 in the past month.

The figures reveal the first recorded fall in house prices in June - traditionally a strong month for sales -and points to a grim housing market in the coming months.

Property experts predicts sellers would have to reduce prices further to attract buyers.

Homeowners will need to take at least 10 per cent off the prices that were being asked at the peak of the boom.

The report warns that "run-of-the-mill" properties are being badly hit and semi-detached homes in commuter towns need to be marketed as "bargain buys" to stand any hope of selling.

In spite of the lowest housing transactions for 30years, new sellers had been coming to the market asking for record prices. It was a mad state of affairs that defied the laws of economics.
New sellers are now taking pro-active steps to price more realistically from the outset to attract increasingly hard-pressed buyers.