- House prices in Cornwall fell by 1.3% in December, more than regional average
The property market boom in Cornwall has come to an end after the market which soared during the pandemic has now cooled, with prices falling by nearly 1.5 per cent.
Houses and flats in Cornwall are now selling for less compared to last year, and can take over two months to sell, as estate agents struggle to find buyers – and one six-bed family home had to drop its asking price from £750,000 to £695,000.
Since 2019, the average property price in Cornwall increased by 35 per cent to £313,420, according to estate agents Hamptons.
But prices fell rapidly last year by 1.3 per cent in December, more than the fall in the South West of 0.5 per cent.
Properties took 77 days – around two-and-a-half months – to sell on average last year, which is the longest sell time in since 2015, Hamptons say.
According to analysis by PropCast, which studies the proportion of properties for sale that are under offer, Cornwall is now a buyer’s market for the first time since Covid.
Around 31 per cent of properties for sale are under offer at present, which is a fall of eight percentage points since the same month last year, The Telegraph reports.
Properties wait around longer up for sale and are more likely to have the price slashed.
Sellers have had to bring prices down to cope with the changing market. A six-bed detached house on the Lizard Peninsula saw its price fall from £750,000 to £695,000 – by £55,000 – from August to December last year.
A four-bed detached house with its own pool in St Mawgan had its asking price dropped from £1.5million to 1.25million from July to February. And a two-bedroom cottage in the same part of Cornwall has had its asking price slashed twice since December from £525,000 to £499,000.
In Cornwall, 3.2 per cent of properties up for sale had a price reduction of five per cent or more in the four weeks to March 17, which is less than than a year prior, according to property website Zoopla.
But house buyers have noticed, and the total sales agreed in the first eight weeks of this year is 23 per cent higher than last year, according to Savills who have used TwentyCi data.
Buyers and sellers are reportedly now adjusting to the ‘new normal’ of five per cent interest rates and some are fed up of waiting around, Robin Thomas of Recoco Property Search told The Telegraph. He told the paper that he has had his first two clients – cash buyers with budgets more than £1.5million – in Cornwall in three months.
He said that last year there was a ‘huge divergence’ between what sellers expected to sell for and what clued-up buyers were willing to pay which caused blockages in the market.
Mr Thomas said there has now been a price adjustment and that many properties worth over £1million are going on sale ‘off-market’.
But the coast of Cornwall is the most popular places for clients of First In The Door founder Claire Whisker, which matches house buyers with agents.
She told The Telegraph that more people are moving to Cornwall rather than buying holiday homes. She said there was an increase in housing stock and buyers are getting reductions in the asking price, which did not happen in 2022.
And Savills has found that the high-end properties have dropped off in price even moreso, with the price of the most expensive homes falling by 8.7 per cent in the year to September 2023 – higher than the 6.5 per cent average for coastal locations in the UK.
Jonathan Start, of Start & Co, told The Telegraph that for properties below £500,000, the market is more active as buyers think that prices are unlikely to fall further, after a 10 to 15 per cent fall since 2022.
The reduction in the higher rate of capital gains tax on residential property sales from 28 per cent to 24 per cent, and the removal of tax reliefs for some holiday lets could lead to a decline in people entering the holiday home business, Josephine Ashby, from agents John Bray & Partners told The Telegraph.
