"It’s not unusual for sold prices to exceed initial asking prices, but in the current market there simply isn’t the required level of buyer demand to drive such price hikes."
- Yopa’s national franchise director, Steve Anderson
The gap between what sellers want for their home and what buyers are actually paying has increased by a further 1.1% in the past year to create a gap of 17.1%, new data analysis from Yopa shows.
Yopa analysed the average asking price and average sold price of homes in Britain that sold in July 2024 and compared it to the same data from July 2023.
The analysis reveals that the average asking price of a home in Britain in July 2024 is £365,999. Meanwhile, the average sold price stands at £303,396. This means that homes are, on average, selling for 17.1% below asking price, equivalent to -£62,602.
The data also shows that the gap between asking price and sold price has increased by 1.1% since July 2023 when homes were selling for 16% below asking, as higher mortgage rates continue to impact the price buyers are able to pay versus the price expectations of the nation’s sellers.
On a regional level, the largest deficit between asking price and sold price is found in Wales.
In Wales, the average asking price stands at £281,105, but homes are selling 24.2% below this figure at £213,147.
Homes in the North East are selling at an average of 22.8% below asking, followed by the West Midlands (-21.8%), Yorkshire & Humber (-21.4%), and the North West (-20.8%).
In fact, there are no regions in which sold prices are matching asking prices, with the smallest gap found in London where the difference stands at 7.4%.
As for which regions have seen the largest annual increase in the gap between asking price and sold price, the North East tops the list.
July 2024’s difference of 22.8% is 6.8% wider than the 2023 gap of 15.9%.
In Yorkshire & Humber, asking prices and actual sold prices have grown 3.3% further apart over the past year, while in the West Midlands, the gap has increased by 2.1%.
There is just one British region in which sold prices have grown closer to asking prices over the past year. The South West’s current difference of 19.1% is 0.5% narrower than July 2023’s figure of 19.6%.
Yopa’s national franchise director, Steve Anderson, commented: “Whilst market stability has improved since the decision to freeze the base rate in September of last year, it’s clear that sellers remain largely over-confident when it comes to their asking price expectations versus the price they are actually able to sell their property for.
"In hot market conditions, it’s not unusual for sold prices to exceed initial asking prices, but in the current market there simply isn’t the required level of buyer demand to drive such price hikes.
"This is largely down to the fact that mortgage rates remain substantially higher than we’ve seen in previous years and so buyers simply aren’t able to over-stretch when borrowing to put in a higher offer for their desired home.
"The good news is, of course, that interest rates are forecast to fall before the year is out and, as they do, this should help drive buyer market activity to a greater extent and close the gap between asking prices and sold prices.”
