Homes sell for record discount

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The average seller in England and Wales got just 90% of their asking price during September, the lowest level since property intelligence group Hometrack first launched its index in 2001.

The figures were supported by research from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), which said sellers in some areas of the country were accepting discounts of 12.5% of their asking price.

Hometrack said house prices fell for the 12th month in a row during September, losing a further 1% of their value, and it warned that transaction levels looked set to fall back to a level not seen since the 1960s.

The latest drop helped to push up the annual rate of decline to a record level of 6.2% for the year to the end of September.

The group also recorded a further fall in the number of new buyers registering with estate agents as confidence continued to be hit, with 5.3% less people starting the househunting process in September compared with August.

There was also a 1.5% fall in the number of people putting their property on the market during the month, while the amount of time homes are taking to sell continued to increase to 11.5 weeks.

The group said the recent events in the world financial markets were creating unprecedented levels of uncertainty among UK households.

Richard Donnell, Hometrack's director of research, said: "The number of homes set to change hands in 2008 is likely to fall to a level not seen since the 1960s.

"Weak demand continues to put a downward pressure on house prices and looking ahead it is very hard to identify the mechanisms by which the current cycle of weak confidence, declining sales volumes and falling prices can be reversed in the near future."