'Desperate' seller dropping house price by £1,000 a week

A desperate seller caught out by the credit crunch has vowed to cut the price of his home by £1,000 a week until it is snapped up.

The four bedroom home in Skewen, Neath, south Wales, has already come down from £169,950 to £120,950 since December last year.

Now in a bid to kick-start a bidding war for the previously overlooked property the owner appears ready to sell it at any price.

The property was bought for an undisclosed sum by a London-based company called PXS last year.

It is now being advertised for sale through Peter Morgan Estate Agents who claim that the unlikely sales drive has turned their phones red hot.

Jayne Pearce, the estate agent sales manager, said: "The vendor is an independent company which bought the property for quite a lot of money last year.

"We got involved in selling it in early December but I remember at the time I did not want to take it because I didn't feel that we could sell it.

"I think the sales instruction was that it should be priced at £169,950. In the end we convinced them to drop it to £149,950."

Despite that initial 12.5% price drop the home has been shedding thousands of pounds ever since until reaching its current price.

But interest in the home has sky rocketed since the company came up with the idea of selling the home like any department store might sell sofas.

"The phone has been red hot this morning. There is a lot of interest and people are coming in with offers," added Mrs Pearce.

"The problem is that it is such an awful time for selling homes and arranging finance that everybody is having to reduce and reduce their price.

"It is a buyers' market and you need a quirky idea like this to get things moving.

"People are coming in and either offering what they can afford or what they think it is worth. We are hoping we will have a sale real soon."

John Parker, whose company PXS bought the house last year, told BBC Wales online he had been inspired by a shop-owner who did the same to sell sofas.

"The market is more uncertain now than in the past so it is harder to sell now than it would have been nine months ago.

"I would have hoped to sell this house within a couple of months but we had to have a rethink when the credit crunch kicked in.

"There are still house buyers out there but they are playing a waiting game.

"But I hope someone will think 'If I don't make an offer now, I'm going to lose out altogether'.

"The offers are already starting to come in - it is only a matter of time."