STUBBORN homeowners have been urged to ditch unrealistic asking prices as homes throughout the Westcountry are sitting on the market for more than a year.

The greatest market stagnation was witnessed in upmarket Topsham, near Exeter, and the harbourside community of Fowey on the south Cornwall coast, according to the property website Home.co.uk.

On average, it took around 300 days between the hoisting up of a "for sale" sign to a sale being agreed in both the two communities.

It is far a cry from a few years ago when homes in the Westcountry were routinely snapped up within days.

The marked slowdown has been blamed on sellers being unwilling or unable to reduce their asking prices and estate agents over-valuing property.

Richard Copus, Devon spokesman of the National Association of Estate Agents, said sellers were gripped by a "fear factor" over losing money, a sense heightened by seeing a property similar to their own advertised for much more. Mr Copus said: "There are a few properties on every agent's books that have been around for more than a year. But put the property on at the market value and it will sell."

Home.co.uk said property was remaining unsold for much longer than even 18 months ago.

In that time, UK house prices have fallen by around 18 per cent from peak to trough as lending has been rationed with the economy slipping into recession.

In summer 2007, a property for sale in the UK was on an estate agent's books for just 50 days on average, Home.co.uk said.

In January this year, the time it took to market a property trebled, soaring to a record 154 days. But it took appreciably longer to get a property off an agent's books in Devon and Cornwall.

In the same month, the average time it took to market a house in Devon was 212 days. Meanwhile, it was taking agents in Cornwall 227 days to affect a sale.

Doug Shephard of Home.co.uk, which compiles the figures based on around 17 million recorded entries on its property search archive, said: "Time on market indicators will continue to rise unless more sellers cut their asking prices or mortgage lenders ask for smaller deposits, preferably both."

Some of the figures were skewed by the small sample base. In the desirable estuary town of Salcombe, South Devon, it took properties valued between £300,000 and £400,000 a massive 412 days on average to sell. There were, however, only 14 sales made in this price bracket.

But thousands of properties in the most-populated areas of the Westcountry were also hanging around for many months. Homes in Plymouth are taking more than six months to shift and Torquay around 240 days.

Westcountry agents have reported a rise in interested buyers since the New Year, buoyed by all-time low interest rates and the prospect of picking up a bargain.

Andy Goundry, co-founder of Truro-based estate agents Goundry Pearce, and Cornwall chairman of the National Association of Estate Agents, said sellers were now curbing their aspirations and being more realistic about what prices they could get.

He added: "There's a simple answer to this. There are a lot of properties that are around for quite a lot longer because they will not drop their price to one that the agent feels it will sell.

"When an agent did not deal with the home information packs, he would have taken the property off the market.

"But they are more reluctant to do this because sellers have paid hundreds of pounds for these reports.

"Some of the property coming on to the market now is selling quicker. I have had four or five that have sold in a week.

"But there is still quite a lot of old stock hanging around, either because people cannot afford to drop the price or they don't want to.

"But those coming on to the market now are being more realistic."

Mr Goundry suggested sellers in expensive locations such as Fowey and Topsham would be less willing to let their property go at a knock-down price because of the huge amounts of money they had paid.

Home.co.uk estimates the average sale price in Topsham is £413,120 and £426,259 in Fowey.

Mr Goundry said: "There are people who have paid top money to live in those areas, and they will leave the price there because they don't want to take a hit.

"They think 'If it sells it sells, if it doesn't, it doesn't.'"

Mr Copus said that even at the height of the housing boom, some properties were hanging around because they were overpriced.

"They are properties, generally speaking, that have gone on at a too high a price and the owners have not dropped the prices fast enough to take into account the falling market.

"They are chasing the market rather than taking the bull by the horns.

"It stems from the vendor being over-optimistic and one or two agents overvaluing the property.

"A good agent will say that if you want to sell it, you need to drop the asking prices by say £20,000 or £30,000 to get people through the door, and tell them the property they buy will be doing the same thing."

Last month, the WMN reported seaside property hot spots in the Westcountry had slumped.

Figures compiled by property research company Hometrack revealed that in the three months before Christmas, just two sales went through in Salcombe with a total value of £500,000. This compared to 15 sales at the same time in 2007, with a total value of £8 million.

Meanwhile, Newquay in Cornwall reported just 20 sales at a total value of £4.2 million – down considerably from the previous year's 98 at £22.7 million.