Are houses going at their asking price nowadays? Or is there room to manoeuvre and if so how much roughly?

Do houses ever go for the asking price? I'd have thought that there would still be room to manoeuvre, some houses around my way have been on the market for months, literally some have been up for sale for over 6 months. Either means that the market around here is on its arse (good possibility) or prices are still higher than expectations.

Well above in Cambridge – on 1st day, several offers at asking price, by end of week 1 offer accepted at £60-80k over asking price.

Recession – what recession?

Depends on the house and the asking price!

I've seen some reduced by 25% and still not sell. One in summer we put in an offer of 15k over the asking price and still didn't get the property, ours was second highest out of 7 or 8 in two weeks.

If they are realistically priced then they will go for somewhere near the asking price. The over priced ones are usually stubborn and won't move. The under priced ones attract lots of interest and will go over. You need to do your homework more so than ever.

If they are realistically priced then they will go for somewhere near the asking price

I think that's the key. There is a website where you can go to find out what similar houses in the area were actually sold for, which should give you an idea of what sort of price to go in at.

Here is one I found doing a quick Google search. I think there are a few of them around.

http://www.houseprices.co.uk
http://www.ourproperty.co.uk

are the two I used

These are the best ones I've found:

http://www.mouseprice.com
http://www.zoopla.co.uk

Loads of info on those including estimates of current value.