House prices in the United Kingdom fell at the fastest pace ever seen for the month of August as the number of properties coming to the market continued to outstrip demand, property website Rightmove said Monday.
Asking prices for a property in the U.K. declined 2.4 percent month-on-month in August to GBP 236,260. This was the largest August fall Rightmove has ever recorded and followed a 1.7 percent drop in July.
Olympics failed to deter new sellers, with numbers marginally up on the same period a year ago, increasing pressure on sellers to compete on price to attract scarce summer buyers, Rightmove said in a monthly report on house prices.
Sellers who come to market in the middle of the summer holiday season often have an urgent reason to sell and traditionally set their asking prices aggressively lower, according to the website.
All regions of the country recorded month-on-month price falls for the first time since November 2011. Annually, house prices rose at a slower pace of 2 percent compared to 2.3 percent increase in July.
"One would perhaps expect some sellers to have postponed their marketing plans until after the Olympic distractions, though with more 'working from home' it may have given them an opportunity to begin their property move a few weeks earlier in readiness for the hoped-for upturn in buyer activity in the lead up to Christmas," Rightmove Director Miles Shipside said.
The number of properties coming to the market rose 0.4 percent year-on-year to 127,992.
A recent survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) revealed that house prices in the U.K. declined to the lowest in a year in July. Sales plunged to a near four-year low, according to RICS.
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