Fall in property asking prices is boon to pre-Christmas bargain hunters

Buyers in the market to buy a new home before Christmas can bag a bargain. New data has revealed that sellers are lowering their price expectations to seal a deal before the holiday period.

Rightmove's monthly price index has revealed that sellers are sticking to more realistic asking prices to encourage buyers to make a firm offer before everyone downs tools for festive frolics.

According to Rightmove, every region in the UK has seen the price of new property coming to the market fall, with an average reduction of 1.7 percent (£5,222) in November alone.

Prices traditionally slide in November, but this is the biggest price drop in the month since 2012. However, that slowdown in prices is a boon to buyers who want to wrap up a new home in time for Santa.

The property market has been cooling in London and the south-east for most of 2018, and uncertainty over Brexit and the wider economy means sellers have more realistic expectations of what their property can fetch on the market. And the Rightmove data shows that there has been a slight uptick in the number of agreed sales on the same period a year ago.

Miles Shipside, Rightmove's housing market analyst, said: "New sellers and their agents are reacting to market forces and lowering their pricing aspirations by more and sooner than usual.

"Stretched buyer affordability and the cooling markets in the south and in upper price brackets have combined with the ongoing political uncertainty to change pricing optimism into pricing realism.

"This is a welcome effort by sellers to minimise the usual pre-Christmas market slowdown.

"Some new-to-the-market sellers and their agents have acted early to try to improve the buying mood and avoid the traditional 'buyer humbug' dislike of Christmas housing activity."

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