Property sellers taking time to adapt to market changes

Property sellers in the UK are having a difficult time at the moment because they are having to adapt to changing conditions which mean that they need to make a decision on how they price their own properties for sale.

The values of houses across the UK are constantly falling in 2012, according to Nationwide. The building society said earlier this week that the average price of homes across the UK has fallen for four months out of the last five.

It also said that they were 2.6 per cent cheaper in July than the same time last year.

This is leading, according to Gary Styles, strategy, risk and economics director at Hometrack, to many people having to decide what to do if they are trying to secure a sale.

Mr Styles said that price reductions are now more common, but depend on whether people have a time limit on selling their UK property, or if they can afford to wait it out until conditions improve.

"If you can afford to take time over it, then obviously lowering the price may not be the best option, but it does largely come down to how quickly you want to transact."

Many people struggle to sell at the moment, and Mr Styles said that one of the main problems can be the failure of sellers to be realistic with their pricing, asking for a value that they have no chance of recouping.

"It is about realistic pricing. The market has gone through some dramatic changes in the last two or three years as we all know. Quite often it takes time for, particularly sellers, to adjust to those new changes.

"House prices generally in the UK have been quite sticky on the downside in terms of being reluctant to come down. A lot of that comes from reluctant sellers not wanting to adjust their prices."

He went on to add that aggressive pricing in the market can often be a reason why the number of transactions in terms of homes sold is on the slide.