SUPPLY of homes for sale has increased – but so have prices, a house sales website has said.

Zoopla said the number of houses for sale in seaside towns has increased by a fifth in the past year, with Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole seeing a ‘particularly strong’ increase.

The website said prices in the conurbation have grown by a fifth, too.

Despite this, it is now taking longer on average to sell a property compared with spring 2022, taking 23 days longer in the area as a knock-on effect from the rise in supply, Zoopla said.

It added south west estate agents typically have around two-and-a-half times as many homes for sale as they did in spring 2022.

Izabella Lubowicka, senior property researcher at Zoopla, said: “Affordability continues to impact budgets.

"Sellers putting their homes on the market need to keep that in mind and ensure they are pricing their property realistically in order to achieve a sale.”