Your monthly UK housing market update. Covering sold prices, asking prices, surveyor sentiment and what’s next for the property market.
A softer summer, but the market keeps moving.
HM Land Registry – Sold Prices
House price growth has slowed again, but there’s more going on beneath the headline figure.
Annual UK sold price inflation fell from 3% to 2% in June, with the average home now worth £272,000. That’s still £5,000 more than a year ago. Prices rose just 0.1% during the month, compared with 1% a year earlier, and actually fell 0.2% once seasonal factors were taken into account.
The regional divide remains hard to miss. The North West led England with 4.7% annual growth, while London prices fell 2.5% – the capital’s tenth consecutive annual decline. Northern Ireland, meanwhile, recorded a striking 9.2% increase.
But slower price growth doesn’t mean buyers have stopped moving. Transactions reached 99,000 in June, up 2.5% year-on-year, while mortgage approvals climbed to 58,200. That remains below the previous six-month average of 61,400, but it’s a reminder this is a quieter market, not an inactive one.
Rightmove – Asking Prices
August is rarely the easiest month to sell a house. But this year, sellers have had to work hard for buyers’ attention.
The average asking price of a newly listed property dropped 2% (-£7,360) to £364,999 – the largest August fall since 2018 and considerably sharper than usual. Asking prices are now 1% below last year, their biggest annual decline since December 2023.
Again, though, geography tells a different story. Prices are up 1.5% annually across northern England and 1.1% in Scotland, but down 1.8% in southern England and 3.1% in London. The capital now has its greatest choice of homes since 2010, leaving sellers competing particularly fiercely on price.
There is one intriguing counterpoint: buyer demand has risen 5% since Andy Burnham became Prime Minister on 20 July. Whether that “Burnham effect” lasts is another question – especially with two-year mortgage rates back above 5%.
RICS – Chartered Surveyor Sentiment
Chartered surveyors aren’t calling a recovery yet. What they are seeing, though, is a market that isn’t getting worse.
New buyer enquiries remained at -28% in July, considerably better than March’s -41% low. Agreed sales were similarly subdued at -30%, although again some way above their April low of -37%.
Looking forward, the picture brightens slightly. Near-term sales expectations have improved for four consecutive surveys to -14%, while the twelve-month outlook reached +3% (the strongest reading since February). New instructions also jumped from -23% to -4%, while market appraisals swung to +19%.
Prices remain the sticking point. The national balance improved only marginally from -32% to -30%, with London, the South East and South West particularly weak. And surveyors have actually become less optimistic about the year ahead: twelve-month price expectations slipped from +8% to +4%. Better, perhaps, but not booming.
Zoopla – Housing Market Outlook
For anyone wondering whether to move now or wait, Zoopla’s latest outlook offers no universal answer. Your position – and postcode – increasingly matter.
Annual house price growth is expected to slow from 1.4% towards 1% by year-end, with the North of England and Scotland proving more resilient than London and the South East. Mortgage rates remain the biggest wildcard: they’ve stabilised around 4.8%, but affordability is still stretched and further increases could dampen demand.
Buyers do have one considerable advantage: choice. Stock levels are particularly high across southern England, giving purchasers more room to negotiate and making realistic pricing crucial for sellers.
That creates very different conditions depending on who you are. First-time buyers face fewer competitors and more motivated sellers, but are particularly exposed to mortgage costs. Home-movers are still finding that well-priced properties sell. In London and the South, meanwhile, serious buyers haven’t vanished – they just have enough choice to be picky.
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