British Sellers Cut Asking Prices on 3,000 Homes a Day in September, a 15-Year Monthly High

Sellers in Britain cut asking prices on more than 3,000 properties a day on average in September. That is the highest monthly total in 15 years, according to Rightmove figures shared exclusively with the BBC.

The U.S. market shows the same pattern. Sellers are cutting prices, buyers are scarce, and borrowing costs are doing much of the damage.

Britain: 34% of listings cut

Rightmove said the September total was driven in part by a glut of homes on the market and by some sellers setting unrealistic expectations. The average cut was nearly 7%, equal to almost £21,000 off a typically valued home.

The share of listed homes with a reduction stood at 34% last month. That is only slightly below the peak of 36% in September 2023, and the proportion has stayed high since.

A price cut also slows the sale. Homes that were reduced took a typical 119 days to find a buyer, against 39 days for homes listed at one price.

Richard Donnell, executive director of research, said properties needing a reduction were half as likely to find a buyer within the normal three-month window.

Zoopla's numbers show the same imbalance. Homes for sale were up 5% in September from a year earlier, while sales agreed fell 9%.

A quarter of newly listed homes in September had been on the market within the previous year. Six in 10 of those returned at a lower asking price.

Zoopla said buyers are in the driving seat and are more selective about what they view. Mortgage rates have risen to three-year highs, and the company said buyers must keep monthly payments affordable.

September is also the month that usually sees the most cuts, because sellers often want to complete a deal by the end of the year.

Why a cut can backfire

Colleen Babcock of Rightmove said a reduced price makes some buyers suspicious. "Once a home has been on the market for a while and then has a price reduction, some buyers start asking questions, even when there is nothing wrong with the property," she said. "In a market with so much choice, first impressions matter."

Tarah Lourens, Rightmove's chief operating officer, said emotion shapes how sellers price. They put a value on the time and money they have sunk into a home. Buyers, she said, simply compare everything available at their budget.

Craig Webster of Tiger Sales and Lettings in Blackpool said the initial price is the best chance to catch active buyers. Katie Griffin of surveyors Sawdye and Harris in Devon said a correction can end with a seller taking less than even the revised asking price. By then, she said, buyers wonder why a home that has been online for months has not sold.

Sellers who contacted the BBC's Your Voice described a stuck market, with leasehold sellers in England facing extra problems. One man 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."

Not everyone in the industry reads a price cut as a loss. Andrew Boast, chief executive of SAM Conveyancing, said sellers may still come out ahead if they negotiated hard when they bought and the home rose in value while they owned it.

United States: the highest price-cut share since 2022

Realtor.com's September report, released Wednesday, Sept. 30, found 20.8% of U.S. listings had a price reduction. That is up 0.9 percentage point from a year earlier. It is the highest September reading since 2018 and the highest for any month since October 2022.

Borrowing costs jumped during the month. Freddie Mac's average 30-year fixed rate rose from 6.66% in late August to 7.03% in the week ended Sept. 24. A year earlier it was 6.30%.

Realtor.com estimates that a half-point swing in rates shifts purchasing power by roughly $30,000 for a buyer with a $2,000 monthly principal-and-interest budget.

Pending sales fell 4.1% from a year earlier, after a 0.2% dip in August. They dropped 6.2% from the previous month. Active listings rose 5.4% to about 1.16 million, the fastest annual growth in six months.

Inventory is still 9.1% below typical pre-pandemic levels, but the gap has narrowed as unsold homes pile up. The national median listing price fell 1.4% from a year earlier to $419,250.

"Demand rarely picks up much this time of year regardless, but the rate environment and underlying geopolitical uncertainty made sure the housing market's fall stall came early this year," Realtor.com senior economist Jake Krimmel wrote.

Where sellers are cutting

The West had the highest share of reductions at 22.8%, up 1.8 points from a year earlier, the biggest jump of the four regions. The South followed at 21.6%, then the Midwest at 20.7%. The Northeast remained the tightest at 15.2%.

Among metro areas, one-third of listings in Salt Lake City had been cut. Denver was at 31.5% and Portland, Oregon, at 31.3%.

What comes next

Both markets share the same arithmetic. Listings are up, agreed sales are down, and mortgage rates are near multi-year highs. Sellers who price for last year's market are the ones lowering their asking prices.

Realtor.com said the key question heading into October is whether deeper cuts will be enough to bring more buyers back into the market while borrowing costs remain elevated. Krimmel described pending sales declining while inventory grows as a sign of stagnation worth following in October.