Interesting article on how much house prices have fallen in some areas

[LavenderOregano]

Why your home’s value has fallen more than you think

https://www.thetimes.com/article/503c235d-9977-468f-8867-2f21f1fd4c90?shareToken=0ebf76fff94d10ca96325cdbc26d4544

Interesting article on how much prices have fallen in parts of the country. It’s amazing how little this is cutting through.

I'm not clear on what you mean by "cutting through"?

If you mean that people aren't aware of it, that will be because:

"“The price correction is hidden because it is much greater on an inflation-adjusted basis,” says Lucian Cook, director of residential research at the estate agency Savills. “You wouldn’t know it if you only looked at everyday figures.” Indeed, Nationwide’s non-inflation-linked figures (or nominal ones) show a 1.9 per cent rise in house prices since autumn 2021."

So the posters on here trying to talk down the market and encouraging people to make low offers and sellers to drop their prices because "the market has fallen" aren't as right as they think they are.

Yet there are still tons of houses on sale for 6 months plus, at a price that assumes 2020/2021 era growth continued unabated for the last 5 years.

For me my nemesis is a house bought only 2 years ago, on sale since January, initially advertised at £40k more than the sellers paid for it.

They clearly overpaid a lot in 2023 (it’s a 3 bed on a street of 4 & 5 beds on for only slightly more), have done zero work while owning it, and the prior owners last updated it maybe 20 years ago…

Yet they’re unwilling to accept even what they paid for it, let alone the £50k less than that it might actually sell for.

They already missed out on their ‘dream’ onwards purchase due to this.

But prices have dropped in many areas and some vendors haven’t kept pace with that. There are houses locally that have been on the market for nearly a year. Perfectly decent houses in good condition, but the price they commanded in 2022 is no more.

The only properties selling are those who have priced very realistically to start with, or who have reduced. Some several times.

It may not be true of the entire country, but it is in my part of it.

Prices do seem to have dropped in some areas. Flats don’t seem to be shifting at all. A friend just sold her flat for less than she bought it for.

Lots of areas, such as London and lots of the SE, are down both real and nominal, but if you asked the average person they would guess that prices were rising.

None of this is about talking the market down. The market is where it is for all sorts of reasons- interest rates, inflation, job insecurity- not threads on MN 👍

Prices have dropped in my neighborhood, but I think that's reasonable.

I think it's going to be true in our neck of the woods. Talking to the estate agent we are considering using yesterday, he told me that prices are pretty much 20% down on the 2022 peak, and that the market is much, much slower. Which all makes sense to me: interest rates are up, job progressions feel less secure, salary increases are smaller, and the cost of living hits everyone at the supermarket and the petrol pump every week.

Locally, it just seems to be the moment that people are deciding to downsize. Anecdotally, I know there are plans afoot for a mass 70th birthday party because there are so many 1956 births. All of them selling up simultaneously is bad news. We are relocating completely, but it's noticeable that what is selling is pretty fixer-uppers (very keenly priced ones) and smaller houses. For which the downsizers and the FTBs are competing. Friends have sold a nice mid-terrace house for most of their asking price

Gorgeous expansive family homes, rather less so. I/we (and probably you) are hoping that our house is special enough to cut through the noise.

How long ago did they buy it?

I don’t think you’ve understood what you’ve copied and pasted here @MotherofPufflings That person you’ve quoted is contradicting your main point.

Sale volumes are the thing to look at, media pieces always have an "expert" (vested interest) who will contradict the main point being made if it is negative towards house prices/property in general, they do that because a lot of advertising revenue comes from property developers/banks, mortgage approvals are way down and if that coincides with the "10 year yield" staying at 5% or above (AB has already been cautioned about the bond market risk he is facing apparently) then there will be a lot of downward pressure on property values.

They moved into the flat in 2019 if memory serves me right.

Ok, a loss on a property from 2019 prices isn"t surprising though.

I'm in London and house prices have definitely stalled, and flats seem to have maybe dropped a bit; there are flats similar to the one we sold ten years ago on the market for only about 10% more than we sold ours for, which is a drop by London standards. I think houses have sat at a similar price for the last 5 years, they have gone up slightly, but nothing like the bonkers amounts of 10 years ago.

Still on the market though? They might not make the ten years ago price, London was a mega bubble. Sales volume is what counts though, demand is definitely dropping, London new-build sales were down 60% recently.

I do one day a week in an agency...we havent sold a house for over 6 months, only cheap flats are selling now.

Are they making money on rentals?

We do a lot of admin for other agencies rentals, inspections etc so that side is busy..i suspect i will lose my one day soon and return when it picks up again in a few years...its only a 3 min walk from home so very convenient !

Fair enough, not sure it will "pick up" in a few years though, I think the cheap debt era is over as well as the "mass migration" era.

Mansion tax sparks £247k plunge in Westminster house prices

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/3b76801f061092c0

In the broader London market, prices dropped 3.7pc to an average of £554,814 in the year to May, which was the fastest fall in house prices for two years.

In Hammersmith and Fulham, property prices fell 10.9pc in the year to May, the fastest annual decline since July 2009 when the property market was still reeling from the global financial crisis.

House prices in Kensington and Chelsea declined 11pc year on year to an average of £1.26m in May 2026, down from £1.4m in the same month a year earlier.

It's a big fall, but the prices for property still don't make sense. £247k is a huge fall, but it's clearly not referring to the sort of property that a young person with some inheritance could buy. My DS's flatmate would like to live in Chiswick to cut the commute and has saved a decent deposit towards it. But there's still a way to go before he can pull it together. These are expensive areas, unless you are state funded.

I think Labour under AB (rejected twice previously for leader, now unelected PM!) and the ME escalation are going to crash the market hard, AB is going to be even worse than 2Tears, you can just sense it?

Keep Pumping would be criticising AB because they are a Farage fan.

If Farage didn"t exist I would still be criticising AB, this has all the hallmarks of a vanity project, he previously failed twice to become leader, this is going to be worse than 2Tears, mark my words, they might as well just start building a road all the way to number 10 for Farage to drive in and take the PM job.

Lower house prices - wouldn't that be terrible!

I appreciate some people will be hit with negative equity but overall unaffordable housing is a curse on society.

Using this logic, is Farage bound to be a failed vanity project MP because he failed 7?8? times to get elected before Clacton? If you say so!

Getting back on topic, it looks to me as if the stalling or dropping prices is more evident in the higher priced areas of the country. Not sure it's affecting the Midlands or north east so much. Maybe it's a kind of levelling out. But I haven't been following closely.