Finance & Business World

Britons selling their home should “get smart'' and price their property more realistically before they lose out when home values decline later this year, Rightmove Plc said.

The average asking price climbed 0.8 percent in March to 239,655 pounds ($475,000) and they rose 1.3 percent in London, Britain's most-used property Web site said in a statement today. It said the gap between what owners charge and buyers can afford is widening as consumers find it harder to get a mortgage.

Bank of England policy maker Kate Barker said on March 19 that buyers will struggle to afford homes even if property prices weaken this year. The bank hosted a meeting of banking executives the next day as officials tried to stem a financial crisis that has prompted lenders to scale back mortgage offers.

“Sellers should price below their competition to achieve more interest now and avoid a larger price drop later in the year,'' said Miles Shipside, Rightmove's commercial director. “If sellers were to price more realistically at the same time as lenders were able to normalize lending criteria, we could see a speedier harmonization of seller expectations and buyer affordability.''

While asking prices are less than 1 percent below their record high of 241,642 pounds reached in October last year, sales are being agreed to at around 10 percent less than that, the report said http://us-no-fax-payday-loans.com. In London, average asking prices were 1.3 percent lower than the record of 412,731 pounds in November.

`Urgent' Action

Rightmove also called for the government, the Bank of England and lenders to take “urgent coordinated action to ease mortgage liquidity.''

British banks have raised the cost of borrowing for homebuyers with the smallest deposits to a seven-year high, declining to pass on two Bank of England rate cuts to 5.25 percent. The average rate offered by lenders on loans for 95 percent of the price of a property, fixed for 24 months, rose to 6.55 percent central bank data showed this month.

The U.K. housing market slumped to the worst since the eve of the nation's last recession in 1990, a survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors showed this month. Mortgage approvals stayed close to the lowest in nine years in January, the Bank of England reported Feb. 29.

House prices rose 5 percent on the year, compared with an annual 5.8 percent in February, Rightmove said today.

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