House asking price growth is at its weakest since 2008 financial crash

This year saw the weakest month of October for house sellers’ asking price growth since the 2008 financial downturn.

Across Britain, the new seller asking price is only up 0.5 percent, or £1,950, in a month, to £368,231.

Usually, buyers spring back to the market after the summer holidays, however, there’s been limited activity this October, as the increase in asking price is well below the average increase of 1.4 percent recorded in October over the past 20 years, the website said.

The number of sales being agreed is 17 percent below this time last year, it added.

Rightmove’s analysis indicates that starting too high with the asking price and reducing it later can negatively affect the chances of a sale.

Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s director of property science, said: “New seller asking prices have seen a rise, as they usually do at this time of year following the summer holiday season.

“While this year’s much more subdued rise indicates that some new sellers are gradually heeding their agents’ advice to price competitively, agents report that other sellers still need to adjust their expectations on the price they are likely to achieve.”

Houses priced realistically from the outset are 50 percent less likely to fall through when a sale is agreed upon.

Sarah Coles, head of personal finance, Hargreaves Lansdown explained overpriced properties encourage buyers to think that if they hang around a bit longer, prices will fall even further. “A hefty dose of realism” is the only sales approach that works in a market like this, she said.

The index also found that those that started out overpriced were less likely to get from a sale to a completion because sales tend to fall through somewhere along the way.

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The HL Savings & Resilience Barometer found that the average mortgage payment is £765, but that couples with children pay an average of £902.

Ms Coles said: “Given that so many of them are on lower fixed rates, and those further down the track have much smaller monthly payments, it means those borrowing to buy today are likely to face far more alarming monthly costs, and need to think very carefully about what they can afford before taking the leap.” 

“Those looking to secure a new home for the new year should apply for a mortgage in principle to work out what they could afford, and listen to local estate agents about what’s happening in their local housing market.”

The report was released as separate research from estate and lettings agent Hamptons indicated that, across Britain, the average rent for a newly-let property was 11.7 percent higher in September than a year earlier.

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Hamptons put the average monthly rent on a newly-let property at £1,325. Landlords have been facing their own rising costs as mortgage rates have increased.

Mr Bannister continued saying the mortgage market is “much more stable right now compared to three months ago, giving movers a little more assurance over the rate they are likely to be offered and therefore what they are likely to be able to afford.

Aneisha Beveridge, head of research at Hamptons, said: “A decade of cheap money and rising house prices encouraged many landlords to remortgage and extract cash out of their buy-to-let when remortgaging.”

She added: “Rising rates will reverse this flow of finance, pulling cash out of the economy and back into the housing market as investors look to pay down their debt instead.”

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