DORSET home-owners with their property on the market have been slashing thousands of pounds from the asking prices, it is claimed.

Research claims 46 per cent of sellers in Bournemouth have cut their asking price at least once since August, while more than 40 per cent have done the same in Poole.

Nationally, 36.4 per cent of vendors have cut their asking price in that time, by an average of 6.1 per cent – or around £16,000.

Nigel Price, residential director for Goadsby, which has its head office in Bournemouth, said the company’s own figures seemed to be close to the national picture.

“For about one-third – 30-33 per cent – of our available stock, we’ve reviewed its price in the last couple of months,” he said.

The average reduction came out at about five per cent, he said.

He said buyers were being cautious but realistically priced homes were still selling. And while asking prices might be coming down, the same might not be the case for actual sale prices.

“Some of those asking prices have got pushed up a little bit more than they should have done,” he said.

“If you review the asking price, there’s a good chance you will sell the property,”

Adrian Dunford, principal at Sandbanks-based estate agency Tailor Made, said some asking prices were being cut in the “more traditional” market, where properties cost less than £2 million and buyers need mortgages.

“That’s the part of the market that probably is finding life difficult but people are being very realistic about what they want to pay, even though they have an emotive reason for purchasing,” he said.

The same did not apply to multi-million-pound houses in an area like Sandbanks, where people tended to be cash buyers and often did not bother getting a survey, he said. Andy Denison, principal of Christchurch-based Denisons estate agents, said his experience did not bear out the national research by property website Zoopla.

“It doesn’t feel like there are a lot of people bringing their prices down.

“From our point of view, we’ve tweaked a few prices down but there’s not a big feeling of prices coming down,” he said.