House sellers in the Isle of Man drop their prices more than anywhere in the UK, a survey has suggested.

The website Zoopla drew up a table that showed the difference between asking prices and selling prices was £41,212 - or 8.3% - in the Isle of Man.

But estate agents based in the island have poured cold water on the findings, which have been widely reported in the UK press.

In the survey covering a year from December 2017, nearly a third of homes for sale in Britain have had their original asking price reduced, with an average drop of £24,947.

Mark Canty, a director at Cowley Groves, told the Manx Independent: ’The average sale price in the Isle of Man is approximately £270,000. On average we tend to achieve within 5 to 6% of the asking price. This would make the figure £13,500 to £16,200.’

He said that Cowley Groves’s sales for the past three years ’have averaged between 5% and 7%, the last 12 months is 5.6%’.

Tim Groves, residential director at Black Grace Cowley, also doubted the claims and the accuracy of Zoopla figures, stating: ’Zoopla do not have access to actual sale price data, only asking prices.

’Asking prices are not as accurate as actual sales prices because they’re not the price agreed.’

He continued: ’Zoopla trends can tend to be quite misleading, they are generally based on asking prices rather than sales prices and, if covering the whole market, don’t identify differing levels of activity in different price ranges.’

Mr Groves also noted that due to the island’s property market being a relatively small one, a small percentage decrease on a large expensive property can affect the average decrease significantly which is where Zoopla attained such a high average.

He added: ’In spite of Zoopla’s headline-grabbing statistics, the local market is encouraging, positive and making considerable progress compared to recent years.’

Graham Wilson of Manx Move echoed Mr Groves’s comments about high-value transactions distorting the figures, which he attributed to a particularly slow market for properties over £1m, which leads to sellers needing to lower their asking prices.

Mr Wilson said: ’Our average drop from asking price is between 5% to 7%, although this was much more on the high value property. The figures quoted by Zoopla are probably correct but they are giving the impression that the local market is poor. This is simply not the case in terms of the mid-range properties.’

Shane Magee, director of Chrystals, agreed the figures were not a surprise but didn’t reflect the true situation.

’These are asking prices that Zoopla are displaying, not sales prices. The island has a very competitive market, especially in the below-£500,000 market.

’I would say we would average 5% decreases in some sales, others hit their market price or even go higher.’

Mr Magee said some higher value properties may see larger decreases from listing to sales prices but noted that for that type of property, the island is often seen among company like London in market prices and Jersey finds itself in a similar situation.

Zoopla did not respond to our request for a comment.