Property price discounts reach highest level

And the average discount off the original asking price has reached a new high at over £19,500,report property website Zoopla.co.uk.

The amount by which sellers have reduced their price expectations has risen significantly over the past 12 months, with the average property now being discounted by £3,500 more than this time last year.

Last November, amongst those homes that had been reduced in price, the average price reduction was 6.1%.

Today that figure stands at 7.4% which represents a combined discount of over £5 billion off the initial asking prices as sellers become both more realistic and more desperate to close a sale by the end of the year. 

Glasgow tops the list of towns where the biggest discounts are on offer with the average reduction in the city currently standing at 9.1% (£12,881). Newcastle and Bolton follow closely with asking prices currently discounted by an average of 8.9% and 8.8% respectively.

All but one of the top ten areas with the highest price reductions are in the North, where the number of sellers reducing their asking price is also the highest.

Sunderland tops the list of towns with the highest proportion of properties on the market that have been discounted at least once with more than half (53.6%) of sellers there having to reset their expectations downwards at least once.  

Whilst the London property market continues to demonstrate its resilience with the lowest proportion of price-reduced homes in the UK, nearly a third (32.6%) of properties for sale in the capital have had to be reduced in price indicating that London is not entirely immune from the conditions being felt around the rest of the country.

Nicholas Leeming, Business Development Director of Zoopla.co.uk, said:

“With the current economic uncertainty and difficulty buyers face in finding funding, it is no wonder that sellers are having to reduce prices in order to encourage sales.

"And with the latest economic forecasts for 2012 looking decidedly gloomy, sellers may have to reduce their expectations further if they are serious about making a move.”