"There will have been lots of motivated sellers entering the market towards the back end of 2023, sellers who would have been hopeful of securing a sale before the Christmas break as market conditions started to improve"
- Verona Frankish - Yopa
National estate agency, Yopa, analysed data on the number of homes that have returned to the market across Britain having previously failed to find a buyer in 2023. The average price of these homes has then been compared to the wider average price of homes that remained listed for sale to see what kind of discount buyers can expect from a property that has come back to the market in 2024.
The data shows that there are currently 2,019 properties that have returned to the market across Britain, having previously failed to sell.
The largest proportion of returning homes are located in the South East of England which currently boasts 21% of the national total.
London and the East of England each have 13% of Britain’s returning homes, followed by the North West (9%), East Midlands (8%), West Midlands (8%), and Yorkshire & Humber (7%).
Why do homes return to the market?
There are a few reasons that a house is taken off the market without securing a successful buyer. The first and most common is fall-throughs when an agreed sale falls apart before the transaction can be finalised.
When suffering a fall-through, the seller can often lose patience with the market and simply withdraw the property while they reassess their options, over the Christmas period, for example, before bringing it back to market in an attempt to attract a fresh wave of buyers.
However, if the property was initially pulled from the market due to no fault of the seller, there’s a good chance that they will be feeling frustrated and impatient now that home is back on the market, so might be open to selling at a reduced price simply to secure a good sale.
What’s the discount for a returning property?
What kind of discount can you expect for a property that is returning to market after a failed first attempt?
The analysis by Yopa shows that the average price of those properties to have re-entered the market comes in at an average of £362,244. Compared to the overall average British house price of £370,730, this is a discount of -£8,486, or -2.3%.
There are bigger discounts available on a regional level.
In Scotland, homes returning to the market are priced -4% below the wider regional average price. This is a cash saving of -£8,010.
In London, the discount is -3.9%, followed by the East Midlands (-3.7%), South West (-2.7%), and North East (-2%).
CEO of Yopa, Verona Frankish, commented: “There will have been lots of motivated sellers entering the market towards the back end of 2023, sellers who would have been hopeful of securing a sale before the Christmas break as market conditions started to improve.
"However, not all of them will have managed to do so and whether it was due to a transaction collapsing, or simply to reset ahead of the January rush, many will have decided to pull their property listing and re-enter the market come the new year.
"Now that 2024 is upon us, these sellers will be hoping to take advantage of strengthening market conditions and an uplift in buyer activity, but having already listed their home for sale once, many are likely to be offering a discount on their asking price in order to entice buyers to make an offer.”
