Property prices plunge by £8,000 in a month

HOUSE SELLERS’ asking prices plunged by more than £8,000 month on month on average in December, according to a property website.

The 2.6 per cent monthly fall in the price of homes coming on to the market was the biggest recorded in five years, Rightmove said.

Across England and Wales, the average asking price in December was £302,865, a fall of £8,178 compared with November.

It marked the biggest monthly percentage fall since a 3.1 per cent dip in December 2012.

Rightmove said the dip was “symptomatic of the more challenging market some sellers find themselves in”.

In London, asking prices have fallen by 3.7 per cent – or more than £23,000 in cash terms month on month.

In November, the average asking price in London was £628,219 and in December it was £605,203.

Miles Shipside, director of Rightmove, said that every year since 2011 has seen a rise in the price of property coming to market.

He said: “Next year will continue the 2017 trend by being a real mixed bag of different price pressures both up and down, but the net result is that we forecast another year of a slowing in the pace of price rises.”

He said stretched buyer affordability and tighter lending criteria were holding back upward house price pressure.

Rightmove also quoted the views of estate agents in the Yorkshire region.

Mark Manning, director of Manning Stainton in Leeds, Harrogate, Wetherby and Wakefield, said: “Demand across the lower and middle markets remains healthy but there is a little price resistance starting to be felt in various pockets of the region.”