More than two in five homes put on the market in the past three years did not go on to sell, startling new data shows.
The housing market is in the doldrums, with economic uncertainty and high interest rates weighing on household budgets with many potential buyers not feeling motivated to go out and look for a new home.
However, according to property website Zoopla – which conducted the research – a bigger problem is that sellers are setting unrealistic asking prices which put potential buyers off.
It surveyed 2,000 people who had listed their home with an estate agent in the past three years, and a huge 44 per cent said the property never sold.
Of those, 34 per cent admitted in retrospect their asking price was ‘too high’.
Among those who did sell, 53 per cent said they had to cut their asking price before they found a buyer.
In the first three months of this year, homes listed on Zoopla typically sold for 3.5 per cent below the asking price. This is a cut of £18,800 on an average–priced home.
Put off: Agents say sellers are pricing their homes too high, meaning buyers don’t enquire
Zoopla has urged sellers to price their home sensibly, lest it hangs around on the market for too long and leaves buyers to assume something is wrong with it.
It says that for every 5 per cent a home is priced above the local market average for a comparable home, the odds of selling are cut by around 5 per cent.
A home priced at 10 per cent above the going rate damages the odds of selling by 10 per cent.
On the other hand, competitively–priced homes often attract a greater number of buyers, increasing the chances of a bidding war which can drive the eventual sale price upwards.
Richard Donnell, executive director at Zoopla, said: ‘The average homeowner selling in 2025 had been in their home for nine years, meaning many owners are out of touch with what their home may be worth.
‘Sellers need specifics – and that’s where speaking to several trusted local agents who know the area and the buyers actively looking can guide sellers on how to price and market their home for a sale.’
Zoopla also found a generation gap when it came to how people valued their own homes.
A fifth of sellers under the age of 35 admitted they had knowingly overpriced their home, perhaps because they wanted to make more money to buy a bigger home and move up the housing ladder.
However, this approach may have backfired as just over half (52 per cent) of under–35s actually managed to sell.
This was in contrast to over–65s, more than a third of whom listed their home because they wanted to downsize – a move that typically doesn’t require extra cash. Among those, 63 per cent successfully sold their property.
Toxic leasehold homes drag on housing market
It is also possible that younger buyers had a harder time selling due to a reduced appetite for flats, and particularly leasehold flats.
Almost four in 10 flat sellers in England and Wales got less than they paid in 2025, according to Hamptons’ analysis of Land Registry data, which excluded those who had owned their flat for more than 20 years.
Separate data from estate agent group Connells reveals that even when they do sell, leasehold properties are proving a drag on the housing market.
Because of heightened concerns about issues such as service charges, ground rents and cladding, it is taking far longer to buy and sell a leasehold home.
This has contributed to a four–week increase in transaction times in the market overall since April 2019, Connells said.
The typical leasehold home took 155 days to reach exchange in April 2026, which was 58 days longer than a freehold property.
And of sales that fall through, 23 per cent now collapse after three months, up from 18 per cent in 2019.
The deeper into the home–buying process someone is, the more they usually lose in legal, surveying and other related fees when things go awry.
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Aneisha Beveridge, research director at Connells Group, said: ‘For the first time on record, it is now taking more than 100 days, on average, for a sale to progress from offer agreed to exchange.
‘Extra checks, longer chains and tighter legal and compliance requirements are all adding time, with leasehold purchases standing out as the biggest contributor to delays.’
This has added to calls for changes to leaseholder’s rights to be sped up.
Katie Kendrick, spokesman for the National Leasehold Campaign, said: ‘Leaseholders have been warning the Government for many years that the leasehold system would grind the buying and selling process to a halt. That is exactly what we are now seeing unfold.
‘As pressure mounts, leaseholders will not forgive a failure to deliver reform in this Parliament. People have waited long enough.’
The Government has committed to sorting out some of problems with leasehold, and there are a raft of changes at various stages of the legal system.
Ground rents have effectively been banned on new leaseholds since 2022, with plans under way to cap them at £250 on existing leases – but not until 2028.
Freeholder lobby groups also argue that changing the terms of existing leases would harm their financial interests, and could lead companies who make their money through owning freehold properties – including pension funds – to collapse.
