Ocado loss widens to £500m; home sellers slash asking prices – business live

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial newsUK home sellers having to cut average of £14,000 from asking price‘Stability and certainty are big ticks’: Northern Ireland firms on protocol dealAlthough UK home sellers are shaving an average of £14,000 off the original asking price, separate research from Halifax today has highlighted the sizeable house price gains made by millions of homeowners during the past three years.Halifax’s data showed that the average UK house price went up by 20.4% – or £48,620 – between January 2020 and December 2022, climbing from £237,895 to £286,515.According to the 2020-22 data, the average price for bigger homes grew at almost twice the rate than for smaller properties. When the UK housing market first reopened after months of Covid lockdown, there was an increase in demand for larger homes as buyers sought more space, a garden or better environments for working from home.As a result, the average price of a detached home soared by 25.9% betwe