Sellers willing to negotiate house prices

Property website zoopla.co.uk put Chesterfield eighth on the list and Derby sixth, which is good for buyers.

And the survey has shown a new north/south divide developing in property prices, with sellers in the north generally more willing to negotiate than their counterparts in the south.

According to zoopla.co.uk, vendors in the north have shown willing to drop their asking prices by an average of a 7.1 per cent to achieve a sale.

People in Doncaster were the most willing to drop their prices, with average reductions of 7.77 per cent – £13,567.

In Chesterfield the average price adjustment was 6.61 per cent – £10,186.

In the south, only Bournemouth (6.81 per cent), Chelmsford (6.01 per cent) and Swindon (6.15 per cent) made the top ten list.

In Doncaster, sellers of almost half (46.4 per cent) of all properties currently on the market were found to have been willing to negotiate their prices.

The figure was 42.09 per cent in Chesterfield and 41.72 per cent in Derby.

At the other end of the scale, sellers in Croydon, Surrey, were found to be the least likely to allow any discount from the original asking price, the average reduction achieved by buyers being only 5.2 per cent.

Nationally, property price discounts were more than £2,500 higher than one year ago, said zoopla.co.uk, which found that more than a third of owners were willing to take less than the asking price to secure a sale.

Zoopla.co.uk’s research also indicated that where the asking price had been discounted since first being listed, the average price reduction stood at £18,970, nearly £500 higher than three months ago and more than £2,500 higher than last summer.

Of all properties currently on sale in the UK, zoopla.co.uk believes 36.9 per cent have been discounted at least once, against 37.4 per cent in February.

However, the average discount is now £494 higher than in February and £2,576 higher than last August, standing at its highest level in more than a year.

At the top end of the market, though, for homes listed above £1m, the average price reduction is at one of its lowest levels in the past 12 months, a sign that demand at the upper end of the market is strengthening.

Zoopla director Nicholas Leeming said: “Weak demand caused by the continued lack of availability of mortgage finance has caused sellers to knock ever more off asking prices over the past year. This is great news for buyers.”