Sellers who have contacted the BBC’s Your Voice have pointed to the difficulties created by lots of homes on the market, and extra problems for those selling leasehold properties in England.
One, who was selling his late father’s home in south Wales, said: “The market is dead. Lots for sale; no-one buying. No-one thinks it’s going to get easier.”
Tarah Lourens, chief operating officer at Rightmove, said that “emotional” factors influenced sellers pricing a home – as they “put a value on the time and money they have invested in their home”.
But she said that buyers simply considered everything they could buy at their budget.
Agents said that valuations now drew on huge amounts of data. Craig Webster, of Tiger Sales and Lettings in Blackpool, said that getting an initial price correct when new to the market was crucial.
“That’s when you have the greatest opportunity to capture the attention of active buyers,” he said.
Katie Griffin, from surveyors Sawdye and Harris in Devon, said that having to correct a price could ultimately lead to a seller accepting less than even a revised asking price.
“The property may already have been online for several months and buyers can start asking why it has not sold,” she said.
But Andrew Boast, chief executive of SAM Conveyancing, said sellers might still not be losing out, if they had negotiated aggressively when buying the home and had seen it rise in value while they owned it.
