Around a third of the homes currently for sale in the UK have had their asking price reduced at least once. That is close to the highest proportion recorded for this point in the year in more than a decade. It is worth sitting with that for a moment, because it describes something specific happening in your patch this week. ## What the market is actually doing Rightmove’s July index put the average asking price of a newly listed home at £372,359, down 1% in a single month. July normally sees a fall of around 0.2%, so this is roughly five times the seasonal norm and the steepest July drop in ten years. The number of homes for sale per agent is close to a twelve year high for the time of year. None of that describes a market in trouble. Sales in July reached a five year high, and the average two year fixed mortgage rate fell to 4.92%. Buyers are active. They simply have a great deal of choice. For an agency, that combination has one practical consequence. There are more properties sitting unsold, for longer, owned by people who have already had to revise their expectations once. ## A reduction is not a failure. It is a signal. When a vendor cuts their asking price, something has changed in their head. The property they instructed somebody to sell has not sold. They have conceded ground once already. They are several months into a process that was supposed to be finished by now, and somewhere in the back of their mind they are re-examining the advice they were given at the start. That is not a cold prospect. That is a person actively reconsidering, who has not yet decided what to do about it. And if you valued that property six months ago and did not win the instruction, you are in an unusual position. You have spoken to them before. You know the property. You can see exactly what has happened since. You are the one agent in the market who can start that conversation without it feeling like a cold approach. ## Knowing what to say has never been the problem No estate agent needs training in how to speak to a vendor whose property has not sold. That conversation writes itself. The problem is knowing which of them, out of several thousand contacts, is in that position this week rather than last October. The manual version of this is genuinely painful. One Winkworth branch described the old process as spending hours and hours sifting applicant records and cross-referencing them against sold prices, just to find five people who might have a house to sell. Across a multi-branch business, that is a job nobody has time to do properly, so it gets done occasionally, badly, by whoever is quietest that week. Which means the signal is there and nobody sees it. ## Why the next six weeks matter more than usual Reductions of 5% or more tend to peak in September, as sellers who have spent the summer waiting finally adjust to what the market is telling them. So the vendors who will make the largest concessions of the year are, right at this moment, sitting on an unsold property and becoming less comfortable by the week. By September they will have made a decision, and in a number of cases that decision will involve changing agent. The agency that is in that conversation in early September is the one that noticed in August. ## Three things worth doing - **Pick the trigger, not the database.** Reduced is the highest intent signal available to an estate agent, and it is the easiest to act on because the reason to call is factual rather than speculative. Start there rather than trying to work the whole CRM. - **Work a list, not a spreadsheet**. A weekly list of ten people who have just reduced is worth more than a database of ten thousand people who might move eventually. The value is in the timing, and timing decays. - **Do it in August, not September**. By the time the September reductions land, the conversation has already happened somewhere. The people who benefit are the ones who were paying attention while everybody else was away. ## The quiet month is the useful one August is when most agencies stop looking. Low stock, holidays, a quiet phone, and a general acceptance that the month is a write-off. The reductions do not stop. If anything they accelerate into September. The vendors making them are not on holiday from their own problem. Around 60% of the opportunities Homesearch ReContact surfaces are exactly this situation: a past contact, now on the market with another agent, who has just cut the price. Auto ReContact goes one step further and emails those people directly, in your agency name, so the conversation starts whether or not anyone is at their desk. It runs on Reapit, and it is free for the rest of August. [See how Auto ReContact works.](https://agents.homesearch.co.uk/auto-recontact)

Table of contents

Around a third of the homes currently for sale in the UK have had their asking price reduced at least once. That is close to the highest proportion recorded for this point in the year in more than a decade.

It is worth sitting with that for a moment, because it describes something specific happening in your patch this week.

What the market is actually doing

Rightmove’s July index put the average asking price of a newly listed home at £372,359, down 1% in a single month. July normally sees a fall of around 0.2%, so this is roughly five times the seasonal norm and the steepest July drop in ten years. The number of homes for sale per agent is close to a twelve year high for the time of year.

None of that describes a market in trouble. Sales in July reached a five year high, and the average two year fixed mortgage rate fell to 4.92%. Buyers are active. They simply have a great deal of choice.

For an agency, that combination has one practical consequence. There are more properties sitting unsold, for longer, owned by people who have already had to revise their expectations once.

A reduction is not a failure. It is a signal.

When a vendor cuts their asking price, something has changed in their head.

The property they instructed somebody to sell has not sold. They have conceded ground once already. They are several months into a process that was supposed to be finished by now, and somewhere in the back of their mind they are re-examining the advice they were given at the start.

That is not a cold prospect. That is a person actively reconsidering, who has not yet decided what to do about it.

And if you valued that property six months ago and did not win the instruction, you are in an unusual position. You have spoken to them before. You know the property. You can see exactly what has happened since. You are the one agent in the market who can start that conversation without it feeling like a cold approach.

Knowing what to say has never been the problem

No estate agent needs training in how to speak to a vendor whose property has not sold. That conversation writes itself.

The problem is knowing which of them, out of several thousand contacts, is in that position this week rather than last October.

The manual version of this is genuinely painful. One Winkworth branch described the old process as spending hours and hours sifting applicant records and cross-referencing them against sold prices, just to find five people who might have a house to sell. Across a multi-branch business, that is a job nobody has time to do properly, so it gets done occasionally, badly, by whoever is quietest that week.

Which means the signal is there and nobody sees it.

Why the next six weeks matter more than usual

Reductions of 5% or more tend to peak in September, as sellers who have spent the summer waiting finally adjust to what the market is telling them.

So the vendors who will make the largest concessions of the year are, right at this moment, sitting on an unsold property and becoming less comfortable by the week. By September they will have made a decision, and in a number of cases that decision will involve changing agent.

The agency that is in that conversation in early September is the one that noticed in August.

Three things worth doing

Pick the trigger, not the database. Reduced is the highest intent signal available to an estate agent, and it is the easiest to act on because the reason to call is factual rather than speculative. Start there rather than trying to work the whole CRM.
Work a list, not a spreadsheet. A weekly list of ten people who have just reduced is worth more than a database of ten thousand people who might move eventually. The value is in the timing, and timing decays.
Do it in August, not September. By the time the September reductions land, the conversation has already happened somewhere. The people who benefit are the ones who were paying attention while everybody else was away.

The quiet month is the useful one

August is when most agencies stop looking. Low stock, holidays, a quiet phone, and a general acceptance that the month is a write-off.

The reductions do not stop. If anything they accelerate into September. The vendors making them are not on holiday from their own problem.

Around 60% of the opportunities Homesearch ReContact surfaces are exactly this situation: a past contact, now on the market with another agent, who has just cut the price. Auto ReContact goes one step further and emails those people directly, in your agency name, so the conversation starts whether or not anyone is at their desk.

It runs on Reapit, and it is free for the rest of August.

See how Auto ReContact works.

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