Just thought I'd pass this on, as I found it sodding infuriating helpful. I had a looooooooong chat with a friendly EA today.
Apparently, in my region a property either sells almost instantly or is likely to be on the market for months and months.
Nothing - at all - is going for asking price.
There are loads of vendors testing the market, who aren't that bothered about not selling.
The only successful sales are those with a motivated vendor.
Now I've written it down it looks so bloody obvious compared to our own experience - we have, in attempting this purchase, lost two repos to higher bidders, lost another property to valuation survey, failed to get a mortgage on one with a structural defect, and had three vendors pull the house from sale once we made our initial offer without giving us a chance to make a higher offer (and a fourth on the basis of our feedback, even though they knew we were interested).
I asked the EA what we were doing wrong, to bring all this bad luck to our door - she said she's got loads of potential buyers on her books having the same experience!
Hmm. We're still looking anyway, maybe the next one will be ours....