PROPERTY prices rose by more than 10 per cent over the past 12 months, pushed up by desperate buyers chasing a limited number of homes for sale. That, at least, is the reality according to the latest figures from the Halifax.

Unfortunately for Kevin and Maureen Martin, none of those hungry buyers turned up at their door. Their five-bedroom detached house in Coventry may be on a pretty tree-lined road near the city centre, good schools and a railway link to London, but the property has languished on the shelf for more than six months. A change of estate agent and a £100,000 drop in the asking price to £799,950 in May brought one viewing and no offers. For the Martins, this is hardly what you would call a sellers’ market. Top-end Central London prices might well be stoked by wealthy Russians taking advantage of tax breaks, but this is hardly the reality across the country, where buyers are constrained by rising interest rates and onerous stamp duty.

“When we decided to drop the price we thought that would have a significant effect, but it hasn’t,” said Kevin Martin, a solicitor and former president of the Law Society. “The market has been much quieter than we anticipated. I see a lot of ‘For Sale’ signs around the area, but not many ‘Sold’. There seems to be a shortage of people willing and able to proceed in this sort of price range.”

A closer look at the Halifax figures shows that the increasing cost of borrowing is beginning to bite in the West Midlands, where prices fell by just over 1 per cent between April and June after an 81 per cent rise in the past five years. The lender recorded a recent fall in prices in the South West and Wales, where prices had been soaring since 2002. The slowing market has driven a wedge between north and south. Prices in Greater London, the South East, East Anglia and the South West grew by 10 per cent or more over the last year, but other regions were more subdued. Broadly speaking, Southerners now pay an average £103,451 more for their homes than those living in the North and Midlands.

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Figures such as these are still vastly oversimplified. The slower the market, the more fragmented it becomes. Rising prices hide a multitude of sins. But when prospects are less rosy, buyers become even choosier. A study by Savills notes that country homes in Hertfordshire carry a 25 per cent premium over similar properties in neighbouring Bedfordshire. “In the South East you see strong demand along commuter routes into London,” said Lucian Cook, director of research at Savills. “There are a lot of people coming out of the capital with high levels of equity who are less constrained by interest rate rises. But even in similar locations you see differences in prices depending on the address. Bedfordshire has the transport links and is just as commutable, but has much lower values compared with its neighbours.” According to the Land Registry, only ten houses were sold for more than £1 million in Bedfordshire last year compared with 247 in Hertfordshire. Savills is selling a five-bedroom 17th-century farmhouse in Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire for £1.55 million, but the agent says the property might be worth another £350,000 to £400,000 in Hertfordshire. “In some areas there just aren’t that many buyers of prime property,” said Cook.

That is bad news for the Martins, who cannot change the fact that their home is in Coventry. James Way, of Knight Frank in Stratford-upon-Avon, says: “Buyers tend to favour more fashionable areas. They want to go where their friends have gone. So we see a big difference in demand for homes in fashionable areas such as Warwick, Stratford and Henley-in-Arden and those in less fashionable addresses in Coventry.” Buyers with £800,000 or more to spend in Warwickshire seek period homes in picturesque towns south of Coventry and end up paying between 10 and 20 per cent more to get what they want. But Way believes that they are missing a trick.

“Sellers in less fashionable areas must price their properties to reflect this differential and attract buyers. But there is nothing wrong with Coventry or the villages north of the city. People who are thinking about moving out of London need to think about these areas.”

The Martins’ home is for sale through Shortland Horne, 02476 222123; Savills, 01582 465002; and Knight Frank, 01789 297735

For more tips on how to get a quick sale on your property, go to: timesonline.co.uk/buyingandselling

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