Home owners change sales tactics Some sellers have simply been unlucky, seeing sales fall through as people developed cold feet. Richard and Carole Routledge put Ham Mills in Somerset on the market in January 2011, and three times got to the point of selling at the price they wanted. "One buyer had to go into hospital, another was a bit non-commital, and we don't know why the third one changed his mind," says Richard. The disappointment has been very wearing. You build up your hopes, think you are moving, and suddenly you are not. The estate agent Knight Frank (01392 423111) rang them before Christmas to recommend they drop the asking price from £975,000 to £875,000. "They think that by lowering the price we may create competition and get several buyers interested," says Richard. The house is not short of wow factors. It comes with five bedrooms, frontage on the River Tone, a mill wheel, mill pond, workshop and homey Aga kitchen. "We can't go any lower," says Richard. Their plans to downsize meanwhile remain suspended until they can find a buyer. Graham Osborne has owned his rambling Georgian house with six bedrooms, games room and vegetable garden at Evesham, Worcestershire, since 1999. It is a classic family buy. "The house is not overlooked at all and it is a bit like having a country house in the town," says Graham. He put The Croft on the market in September at £795,000 with Knight Frank (01789 297735) and had a flurry of viewings but has not yet sold. My four children are leaving home and I am rattling around in a large house, so I think I should move to something smaller. But I don't need to sell because I absolutely love it here. He too rang his agent at the end of the year to suggest dropping the price by a generous £96,000 to £699,000. For me it is all about timing. I think we didn't get the price right in the first place, and I should have waited to put it on the market in 2012. These are tough times for people. The Intergenerational Foundation report at the end of last year found that a third of homes are under-occupied, mostly by older people blocking younger families from upsizing into them, so George's urge to sell should be welcomed by at least one growing family in need of a good house. Owners of properties in the North, where the economy is struggling more, tend to have to cut prices more radically. Four-bedroom Ivy House at Thirsk in North Yorkshire has dropped by £205,000, or nearly 30 per cent, from £695,000 to £490,000. Alice Loates of Strutt & Parker (01423 561274) in Harrogate, who is selling it, says she is reassessing all houses which have been on the market for a while. "We have one house which has been on the market for three years and the owners won't adjust the price," she says. But we also have some houses with keen buyers who can't sell their own properties. In Harrogate we can usually sell if the price is right. What is her advice? You have to be realistic.