Cost of home in Hammersmith and Fulham falls £30,000 in one month
May 20 2010 By Dan Hodges
House prices in Hammersmith and Fulham plunged by 3.7 per cent between April and May due to a high volume of unsold homes on the market, according to property monitors Rightmove.
The drop was the fourth highest in London after Newham, where prices fell by 6.1 per cent, and neighbouring boroughs Kensington and Chelsea and the City of Westminster, which saw drops of 4.3 per cent and 4.2 per cent respectively.
Figures released this week show the average asking price of homes on the market in Hammersmith and Fulham is now £757,116 – almost £30,000 lower than a month earlier.
Across the capital, house prices fell by 0.4 per cent between April and May, putting the average cost of a home 5.7 per cent higher now than at the same time in 2009.
Research by Rightmove suggests that only the most appealing homes are snapped up by the few buyers able to secure a mortgage, while the number of unsold properties continues to swell, resulting in a slide in asking prices.
The firm's commercial director, Miles Shipside, said: "We observed last month that rising prices and more properties coming to market would be unhappy bedfellows in the long-term. This month we are seeing signs that the relationship is under increasing stress.
"Sellers are starting to reduce their pricing expectations to court the fewer buyers who are able to proceed, though the number of buyers who can purchase is too low to bring volume back to the housing market.
"The ugly ducklings in the housing beauty parade will be left on the shelf."
But Rightmove's conclusions were challenged by Chris Kerr, director of Shepherd's Bush estate agents Kerr and Co, who said the fall in asking prices is due to some agents over-valuing homes in order to win precious new business.
He said: "What's happening in reality is that there's a shortage of stock, and estate agents are going out to value homes at levels that are unrealistic to get the instruction. Those properties are not then saleable because the prices are too high.
"It seems that prices are going down, but in fact they're doing the opposite - however its a symptom of the market that there is a shortage and some agents are overpricing."
Mr Kerr added that there were still plenty of buyers attracted to areas like Shepherd's Bush, partly due to the appeal of the Westfield shopping centre, and that half of those tend to be cash buyers who are not dependent on a mortgage offer.
Across the country, asking prices rose modestly between April and May, by an average of 0.7 per cent. And in the last full week before the general election, more than 30,000 new listings were recorded in one week, the highest number in two years.
