The number of agreed house sales jumped sharply this month as sellers dropped their prices to shift homes which have been lingering on the market, a study has found.
Overall, house prices drifted lower in October, with a 0.1pc fall for the third month in a row, despite a slight increase in the number of new buyers registering with estate agents, property analyst Hometrack said. Prices were flat in London and fell across the rest of England and Wales. The West Midlands saw the biggest price fall, with a 0.5pc drop, but it also recorded the second biggest increase in sales. The number of agreed sales rose by 9.2pc across the country in the strongest uplift seen since the spring, with Wales and West Midlands seeing strong sales increases of 18pc and 17.6pc respectively. Hometrack said it expects estate agents to continue pushing through as many sales as possible towards the end of the year as demand from buyers tails off. Richard Donnell, director of research at Hometrack, said the big jumps in sales were mainly down to sellers re-pricing homes that have been on the market for a while to a level where sales can take place, rather than a significant increase in demand from buyers.