I mentioned in another thread that I have been tracking new listings in the New Forest area. Something that has become very obvious over the past few weeks is that properties are going on at one price and then getting a reduction almost immediately, sometimes within five or six days of listing.
I saw the Rightmove figures this week showing 34% of all homes on the market have had a price cut, which is apparently the highest since February 2024. That tallies exactly with what I am seeing locally. Three of the seven new listings I have been watching since early November have already been reduced, one by £25,000 after just nine days on the market.
It makes me wonder whether agents are deliberately overpricing to win the instruction, knowing full well they will reduce within a fortnight. The cynical part of me thinks the initial high price is just the bait to get the vendor to sign up, and the “we need to be more realistic” conversation is already planned before the board goes up.
Anyone else noticing this pattern? I realise it is hardly a new complaint but the speed and frequency of it at the moment seems especially brazen. Or am I just being a grumpy old man about it 
Not just you being grumpy. My neighbour two doors down was told £215k by the agent who won the instruction. Been on six weeks now and just reduced to £195k, which is roughly what I’d have guessed from the start. She’s furious. The agent who came in second apparently valued it at £190k and she thought he was lowballing. Funny how that works.
@halfpenny_doris, that is a perfect example. £215k down to £195k in six weeks is a 9% cut, and the property has been sitting there the whole time gathering cobwebs on Rightmove while the days-on-market counter ticks up. By the time it does sell, the buyer will have all the leverage.
I have been thinking about why agents keep doing this and I think the answer is just that it works, at least for them. If three agents pitch and one says £195k while the other two say £210k and £215k, the seller goes with the higher valuation every time. The agent wins the instruction, sticks it on the market, waits for no viewings, then has the “difficult conversation” six weeks later. Meanwhile the other two agents who valued honestly never got a look in.
I saw the Halifax data this week showing prices basically flat nationally. Round here the picture is worse than flat if you account for these reductions. Real sale prices are drifting down while asking prices stay in fantasy land
I think @greenwhistle_hants is right about the pitch dynamic, but I would add that it is not always the agent driving the fantasy number. When I sold the flat earlier this year, I had one agent give me what I thought was a reasonable figure and another come in about eight percent higher. I went with the honest one in the end, partly because I had been on the other side of this as a buyer and knew how it played out, but I could feel the pull of the higher number even knowing it was nonsense. The temptation to think “well maybe the market really is that strong” is very real when someone in a nice suit is telling you what you want to hear over a cup of tea in your living room. I wonder how many of these overpriced listings are sellers who insisted on a higher number and the agent just shrugged and went along with it, knowing they would get the reduction call in a month anyway. Either way the result is the same, stale listings and wasted time all round, and I notice a few of the ones I have been watching in south London are now approaching the eight-week mark with no movement at all.
The one two doors down has had a second open day, still no offers. Shocking that 
I have been watching a flat in my old block, which went on at £340k in early November and has now had two reductions in three weeks, sitting at £315k as of this morning. That is a near eight percent cut before anyone has even viewed it a second time, and the agent is still describing it as “competitively priced” on the listing. Saw something the other day suggesting over a third of all properties on Rightmove currently have a price reduction, with the average cut around seven percent, which tallies almost exactly with what I am seeing locally. The question I keep coming back to is whether this is agents genuinely misjudging the market or whether it is a deliberate strategy to win the instruction, pocket the listing, and then manage the vendor’s expectations downwards over a few weeks once the viewings dry up. Either way the vendor is the one left holding the bag while their property looks stale online.