Buyers beware as confident home sellers are starting to hold out for the asking price

 

Saturday, Jun 20,2009, 10:34:50 AM   Click:

Buyers are beginning to lose the upper hand in home sales and new evidence suggests that in some parts of the country, sellers are required to successfully close to the asking price.

Almost two thirds of estate agents across the country asked the difference between prices and selling prices declined sharply over the last three months, the average buyer now pays only 11 percent below the asking price. Vendors in East Anglia has received 95 percent of the price of their homes last month, although the sellers in the north of England have been the acceptance of 74 per cent of the asking price, a discount £ 38.000 to request prices, according to research by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) conducted for the Times.

Brigid O'Leary, chief economist for the RICS said: "The improved sentiment was captured in recent surveys of housing is reflected in a narrowing of the gap between demand and selling prices." Some experts have attributed the reduction of the margin between demand and selling prices to the sellers to be more realistic about pricing their homes. Lucian Cook, director of residential research at Savills, said: "More sellers now that their home is competitively priced. "

He added that vendors are increasingly confident in the south of England because there were fewer goods available. "The North of England has no shortage of stocks affects the south and there is a lot less cash to buy buyers, too."

But in spite of the average buyer in the North pay only 74 per cent of the asking price, 41 percent more real estate agents, he said it was an improvement over March.

The margin between demand and selling prices is the more rapid reduction in the South East of England, with 80 percent of the percentage of reports to ask the prices being achieved at the sale increased between March and May However, vendors in the East Midlands are less confident, with only 10 percent of the inspectors, saying that the margin between demand and selling prices has become smaller.

However, fears are becoming more apparent that the swing in the housing market could be choked off as the cost of borrowing is increasing rapidly.

Nationally, Britain's largest construction company, raised its rates on fixed rate offers a maximum of 0.86 percentage points yesterday. The interest rate on a five-year increase of 4.78 percent set at 5.64 per cent despite the Bank of England's base rate remains unchanged at 0.5 percent.

Rival lenders, including Cheltenham and Gloucester and Northern Rock, followed. Halifax and Abbey, Britain's largest mortgage lender, is preparing to raise interest rates next week.

There was also bad news for some owners of Ipswich Building Society became the first lender to announce that it will increase its standard variable rate (SVR) of 4.99 percent to 5.49 percent from Monday .

Millions of borrowers who have come to the end of a fixed-term deal to pay their lenders SVR while the bank rate remains low, rather than a lock and more expensive, but the brokers have given warning that lenders could increase their secure, and that the replacement cost of fixed and variable-rate deals is likely to increase.

Richard Morea of London & Country Mortgages, the broker said: "It will be a bitter pill to swallow, but it will be advisable to lock a fixed rate deal, even if it is more than their current low SVR and the more you get out, the worst blow that could be. "

Banks and building societies have blamed the rising cost of borrowing on wholesale money markets, which are used to finance loans to clients.