Your monthly UK housing market update. Covering sold prices, asking prices, surveyor sentiment and what’s next for the property market.
Autumn activity picks up, but affordability keeps the market in check.
HM Land Registry – Sold Prices
House prices are still rising year-on-year, but only just. Annual UK sold price inflation slowed for the third consecutive month, from 1.5% to 1.4% in July.
The average UK home now costs £273,000, around £4,000 more than a year ago. Prices rose 0.7% during July, although once seasonal factors are stripped out they actually fell 0.2%.
And, once again, the national average hides some striking differences. The North East led England with annual growth of 4.9%, while London prices fell 3.3% – marking an eleventh consecutive month of annual declines. Northern Ireland remains the outlier, with prices up 9.2%.
Activity also softened. Transactions fell 1.7% during July to 97,000, 1.1% lower than a year earlier. Mortgage approvals dropped to 56,100 too, against a six-month average of 60,800. In short, prices haven’t collapsed, but buyers aren’t exactly rushing either.
Rightmove – Asking Prices
After a particularly quiet summer, September brought something sellers had been waiting for: an autumn bounce.
Average asking prices rose 0.7% (£2,441) to £367,440, the first monthly increase since May and slightly stronger than the ten-year September average of 0.5%. But there’s plenty of lost ground to recover. Asking prices remain 0.8% below last year and 2.3% below where they started the summer.
Sellers also face serious competition. Housing stock has reached a 12-year high for September, while buyer enquiries are 9% lower year-on-year. The contrast is stark: 91% of homes in Scotland are finding a buyer, compared with just 42% in London.
And affordability isn’t helping. The average two-year fixed mortgage rate has climbed from 5.09% to 5.29%, adding pressure to already stretched budgets. With so much choice, buyers can afford to wait for the right home – and the right price.
RICS – Chartered Surveyor Sentiment
RICS figures are still negative. But after months of gloomy readings, the direction of travel is becoming more interesting than the minus signs themselves.
New buyer enquiries improved to -19% in August. This is the strongest reading since January and the fifth consecutive survey to become less downbeat. Agreed sales followed the same pattern, improving to -17% from an April low of -38%.
Perhaps more tellingly, near-term sales expectations jumped from -13% to -3%, putting them close to neutral. Looking a year ahead, +6% of respondents expect sales volumes to rise, twice last month’s +3%.
Prices are taking longer to turn. The headline balance improved only slightly from -29% to -28%, signalling continued downward pressure, with London particularly weak. Still, this is the fourth consecutive improvement since April’s -35% low. Nobody is calling a recovery yet, but surveyors are becoming noticeably less pessimistic.
Zoopla – Housing Market Outlook
There’s still demand for homes. The problem is increasingly simple: what buyers want and what they can afford aren’t always the same thing.
A typical mortgage now carries an interest rate of 5.2%, up from 4% at the beginning of the year and the highest for three years. For the average homebuyer, that works out at roughly £150 extra each month – or £1,800 a year.
Unsurprisingly, many buyers are pausing or waiting for something within budget. Agreed sales are now 9% lower than last year, and Zoopla expects buying power to remain subdued as we head towards winter.
But buyers haven’t disappeared. They’re becoming more selective about where they buy and what they’re prepared to pay. Zoopla still expects close to 1.1 million homes to sell during 2026, with prices edging up around 0.5% by year-end. For sellers, getting the asking price right from day one matters more than ever.
Express Index
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