Buyers Still Push Asking Prices Down

Yesterday, on May 19th The National Association for Estate Agents (NAEA) has revealed figures, which show that in April buyers were still able to push sellers’ asking prices down by an average of 6.2%. The biggest discounts reported came from the sales agreed on semi-detached properties with the asking prices knocked down by 6.6% or £14,087. Buyers of flats and detached houses were able to push the sellers’ asking prices down by an average of 6.4%, while buyers of terraced houses knocked the prices down by an average of 5.4%. However, experts of the National Association for Estate Agents (NAEA) claim that the gap between asking and selling prices is narrowing as sellers are being more and more realistic when marketing their properties. Stuart Clarke, a representative of the NAEA Suffolk branch, said that buyers are also being demanding by making offers with prices of 10-15% lower than the sellers’ asking prices, which, by the way, are generally rather sensible. He added that oftentimes buyers prefer to walk away if their first offer is not accepted. Wendy Evans-Scott, a representative of the NAEA Surrey branch said that the low offers made by buyers can be explained by the fact that cash- and first-time buyers have long been saving their deposits and waiting for acceptable prices, and now believe that it is much better to invest in property rather than to sit in a low interest-rate bank’s savings account. On the other hand, sellers find it challenging to accept low-priced offers as the majority of homeowners still have high expectations, while buyers are determined that a large discount is acceptable. Unfortunately, according to Anthony Nicholson of the NAEA Yorkshire Branch, there are no signs of optimism in the property market as the year has almost lost to depression with increased interest rates and absence of any improvement on the market.