• Estate agents have slashed house prices in recent weeks says survey
  • average asking price down by 1.5 per cent to 245,495
  • Lowest number of houses coming on to market reported since February

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 19:32 EST, 15 September 2013 | UPDATED: 19:33 EST, 15 September 2013


Estate agents have marked down house prices in recent weeks and there has been a drop in the number of properties coming on to the market, says a survey.

The average asking price is down by 1.5 per cent on a month ago, a fall of 3,704 to 245,495, according to the estate agent website Rightmove.

It also reported that the 96,330 properties coming to market in the past month was down by nine per cent on the previous four weeks and the lowest figure since February.

Estate agents have reportedly marked down house prices in recent weeks and there has been a drop in the number of properties coming on to the market

Estate agents have reportedly marked down house prices in recent weeks and there has been a drop in the number of properties coming on to the market

Its survey published today calls into question claims that the country is in the grip of a dangerous property price bubble.

Two government-backed schemes – Help to Buy and Funding for Lending – are pumping cash into the market, helping people to move and encouraging the building of new homes. Business Secretary Vince Cable is one of several experts who has suggested that Britain risks a new property price boom and bust.

Yesterday Mr Cable's Liberal Democrat colleague, Danny Alexander, the Treasury Secretary, dismissed the concerns, saying: 'We are a million miles away from a housing bubble in this country.'

Rightmove director Miles Shipside said: 'Those that think the housing market is nearly back on its feet are missing the fact that the confidence and ability to take on extra debt have a considerable time-lag, and many potential sellers require green stalks of recovery rather than just green shoots.'

But Mr Shipside is predicting an Autumn upturn. 'While prices fell during the month overall, the last couple of weeks have seen the start of a turnaround,' he said.


The comments below have been moderated in advance.

It'll burst, and burst big. The only people saying it won't are those who stand to lose from it - they'll be crying into their Earl Gray's in their pokey little Estate Agent offices soon enough...

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Cable an expert.?.....yeah right !!

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The housing market is still in the bubble in most parts of the country. Real estate is ridiculously over priced compared to earnings. It is only the government schemes that are keeping the bubble inflated. Homeowners are not putting their homes on the market in the expectation that when Help to Buy Mark 2 starts in January the insanity will continue pumping prices even higher. Who knows? They could be right. Too many people in the government and the media have a vested interest in maintaining high property prices regardless of the ruination they inflict on the economy and the penury they impose on the younger generation.

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The answer lies with parliament to make loan limits and prevent sharks lending to bypass limits applied by responsible building societies or banks. At a stroke, prices would fall. No one could afford to buy, and, perhaps capital gains tax on foreign buyers would an interesting innovatio, before the purchase was completed, not later when means to profit and escape multifply.

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Anything can happen with this Mickey Mouse economy. When we get back to reality, and interest rates go up, prices will plummet.

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