The areas where houses sell for thousands below asking price

Think your dream home is out of reach? In these sought-after areas, you could knock £10,000s off the asking price

If you're feeling despondent that your budget won't quite stretch to your ideal home, don't despair.

New research has revealed the areas with the largest discrepancies between a property's listed price and the figure it's actually sold for – and all bar one are in London and the southeast.

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Professional house buying firm Property Solvers tracked 89,582 property transactions between June 2018 and June 2019, using its local house market insights tool

The search engine shows the difference between asking prices listed on Rightmove and how much properties are finally sold for, according to the HM Land Registry.

Prime locations for a bargain

The biggest price drop was seen in southwest London, where on average, properties sold for £85,142 less than their asking price. Northwest London follows close behind, where you could snap up a property for £80,000 less than the face value.

The only area outside London and the southeast that makes the top 20 is Inverness in the Scottish highlands, where homes frequently go for £18,860 below the listed price.

House prices: Expect £85k price drops in this property hotspotHomes in St Albans sell for an average of £19,953 less than face value. 
Image: Nicola Pulham/Shutterstock

Ruban Selvanayagam, co-founder of Property Solvers, said: “Whilst it’s logical to expect a bit of ‘wiggle room’, its increasingly evident that something is amiss in the marketplace and properties are getting overpriced at the marketing stage.

“Bar Inverness, all of the top 20 largest gaps between asking and selling prices are in Greater London and surroundings. This clearly demonstrates that a certain level of realism regarding selling conditions has yet to filter through to the market.”

Selvanayagam added that the discrepancy could be down to estate agents who over-hype house values (and what buyers could get for their property) in order to win the custom of home sellers.

A growing gap

Separate research by Zoopla shows that the gap between asking prices and sale prices in the UK’s major cities is widening – 3.9% on average for the first quarter of this year, with an average of 5.7% in London.

Richard Donnell, research and insight director at Zoopla, said: “Sellers are having to accept slightly higher discounts to the asking price in order to achieve a sale.

“This is a natural response to weaker market conditions and buyers are starting to negotiate harder on price.”

Top 20 locations with the largest price reductions

Region Average gap between asking and sold prices No. of properties analysed
Southwest London -£85,142 802
Northwest London -£80,299 296
West London -£59,192 339
North London -£35,220 464
Kingston upon Thames -£32,901 817
Harrow -£31,166 346
Slough -£26,915 375
Twickenham -£25,273 582
Guildford -£24,081 964
Southeast London -£22,525 788
Western Central London -£21,297 15
Redhill -£20,195 816
St Albans -£19,953 353
Watford -£19,708 353
East London -£19,629 370
Inverness -£18,860 330
Bromley -£18,108 464
Enfield -£18,053 397
Ilford -£18,043 233
Hemel Hempstead -£17,869 790

Table according to data from Property Solvers’ local house markets insights tool.

READ MORE: Top 10 features that homebuyers want

Main photo: Richmond upon Thames in southwest London. Credit: Gordon Bell/Shutterstock

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