Fearful that you may soon lose your job? Struggling to pay your mortgage and sliding into negative equity? What do you do?

Most homeowners in this situation are throwing themselves on the mercy of their lender. But the latest Rightmove data provides further evidence that some City workers are taking a much more drastic course of action - the cut and run option.

Rightmove reports that some of these not-so-rich-any-more employees are slashing the prices of their homes in Canary Wharf in East London for a quick sale. Agents are observing similar behaviour in Shad Thames, Battersea, Clapham and other areas popular with the staff of investment banks and other City institutions. This increase in the number of homes for sale between £750,000 to £1 million has slightly boosted Rightmove's latest average asking price.

The City-boy sellers are crossing their fingers that they will find buyers by Christmas. They are also exploiting the supply of rental accommodation being provided by other homeowners who either cannot afford to sell their houses for less than they paid for them, or are affronted by the low valuations given for these properties.

Richard Cotton, of Cluttons, the estate agents, says that City workers are “drawing a line in the sand, rather than continue to build up losses”. He sees this trend as a sign that “realism is creeping into the market” but adds that cutting your losses is easier if you have developed a trading mentality in your line of work and have savings on which you can rely.

Mr Cotton suspects that the willingness to reduce prices may become more widespread in the spring as job losses in all sectors mount. Karen Ward, an economist with HSBC, thinks that the further house price declines forecast for 2009 could be instrumental in this. She says: “As house prices continue to fall there are some very tentative green shoots on activity that make us think that, over the coming months, sellers will capitulate and start to accept lower prices. As such, volumes may start to improve, even though house prices continue to fall.”

The new year looks set to yield opportunities for bargain hunters. But with good-deal mortgages remaining difficult to obtain for those who have a deposit of less than 25 per cent of a property's value, these opportunities will be open only to those with plenty of spare cash.