With pre-Christmas discounts now is the time to buy a house in London

As traditional as Home Alone on the telly and mince pies, the annual Christmas price-cutting season on property is upon us. Savvy buyers who get their warm jackets on could own a new place at a hefty discount by the real estate Santa Clause. The final weeks of the year are a good time for homebuyers to haggle as there are fewer house hunters around.

While the real estate market across London has boomed since the end of the pandemic, still there are homes in central London that have not been sold for months with sellers forced to reduce their prices. Now vendors are having pre-Christmas offers and discounts, and central London is giving such a good value.

It is one of the quieter months in the home-selling period and so there can be more room when getting a deal over the line. Developers’ willingness to strike a deal at Christmas time is not an outbreak of charity but as a need to meet sales quotas before the end of the year.

There is an absolute swathe of price reductions now. It is a last attempt by vendors and selling agents to exchange contracts by securing a purchaser by Christmas. As we know, after Christmas market is a bit dull and it doesn’t really tend to get going until after February mid-term.

Developers and agents often work extra hard to meet targets in this season, meaning more incentives are available to buyers. Right now, though, discounts are offered at all property ends of the market, by builders small and large, and savings range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of pounds. Many developers who have not yet cut prices are offering discounts by other means, like freebies for buyers ranging from having free furnishings to paying their stamp duty.

According to this week’s report, asking prices across the country had dropped by 0.6 percent (£2,044) in the past month and by 0.4 percent (£2,591) in the capital. Despite the consequent shortage of homes for sale by choice and soaring property prices for prospective buyers, new sellers are ready to give buyers an early Christmas present.