People who sold house for under an estate agency asking price

Fifteen years in estate agency taught me an uncomfortable truth: plenty of agents value to win the listing, not to sell the house. The highest number in the room wins the seller, and the bill arrives later.

The data backs it. In our research at ValuQ, Zoopla's figures show 53% of sellers who did sell had to cut their price along the way, and the typical home now sells around 3.5% below its asking price, roughly £18,800 off. Nearly half of all listings in the past three years never sold at all, with overpricing at the start the main culprit.

So yes, that gap is often a too-high valuation quietly correcting itself. It isn't every agent, it's the incentive. When a seller picks one valuation and forgets the rest, nothing holds the optimistic number to account. That's exactly why we show every local agent's valuation side by side, so the one that was only there to win the listing has nowhere to hide.