A panoramic overview of the UK property market reveals that the market continues to hold steady. On the one hand, there have been some dips in important performance metrics, particularly when it comes to property exchanges. On the other hand, property price growth is continuing to be felt across most regions of the UK.
As Amenda Bryden, head of mortgages at Halifax, pointed out, while there is ‘no doubt that affordability remains stretched, supply is constrained, and regional disparities persist’, there is a sense that ‘conditions have been gradually improving.’ Yet the expectation that the bank rate reduction will arrive slower than anticipated has led experts to revise expectations regarding the performance of the UK property market in 2026.
Property Exchanges
Accumulative listings have reached the highest in over a decade; it is 13.3% higher than the ten-year average. Assessing based on the year-to-date week 8, the figure for 2026 stands at 281,624 property listings, up from 278,283 compared to last year. Similarly, the volume of new instructions for 2026 stands at 38,577, up from 37,900 new instructions compared to 2025.
However, there has been a decline in the overall net sales. The year-to-date week 8 data shows that net sales for 2026 have dipped to 150,466, compared to 156,432 net sales in 2025. Although the 2026 figure is 10.7% higher than the net sales figure for 2024, it is nevertheless notable that net sales for 2026 are 3.8% lower than in 2025.
Even though national net sales have contracted, certain regions of the UK have experienced a significant boost in sales. To highlight the most noteworthy, there have been increases in sales when comparing January and February 2026 to the same period in 2024 for regions such as the East Midlands at 12.2%, Wales at 10.2%, East Anglia at 8.7%, and the West Midlands at 6.6%. This stands in contrast to other regions of the UK: Northern Ireland and London are down 8.6% and 5.9% respectively.
A driver behind this is a sense of caution among prospective homebuyers. Nick Leeming, the chairman of Jackson-Stops, argued that there has been a ‘slight cooling in momentum’, adding: ‘Buyers remain cautious following a period of instability towards the end of (the fourth quarter of) last year, which has tempered confidence across the market.’
While overall net sales are slightly lower compared to 2025, it is a positive sign that property sales, supported by a decade-high volume in property listings, continue to remain stable.
Price Growth
Halifax has observed that property prices rose by 0.3% in February, which follows from an increase of 0.8% the previous month. Year-on-year, the average property price has increased by 1.3%, pushing the average UK property price to £301,151. The OBR has forecast that the average property price will increase by 2% for 2026.
According to Halifax, the most prominent regional price increases have been in Northern Ireland at 6.3%, Scotland at 4.7%, the North East at 3.5%, and the North West at 2.9%. Conversely, Halifax has observed that the southern England markets, traditionally the most expensive regions for property in the UK, have declined, with the South East down 2.2% and London down 1.0% compared to last year.
Yet Robert Gardner, the chief economist at Nationwide, said that these figures indicate ‘a modest recovery after a dip at the end of 2025’ and that property activity is expected to ‘recover in the coming quarters, especially if the improving affordability trend seen last year is maintained as expected.’
This recovery is partly contingent upon lowering mortgage rates, thereby incentivising prospective buyers to enter the property market. The Bank of England reported that the volume of new mortgages approved declined to 59,999 in January, which is the lowest in two years.
Although the bank rate was held at 3.75% on the February Monetary Policy Committee, there was an expectation that the bank rate would likely be reduced over the coming months. ‘Until recently,’ Lura Suter, the director of personal finance at AJ Bell, said, ‘markets were fairly confident we’d see two interest rate cuts this year.’ It is no longer, Suter continued, a ‘near certainty’ that the 19 March Monetary Policy Committee will decide to lower the bank rate, but rather ‘it’s now looking more like 50:50.’
As a result of the ongoing geopolitical tensions, there has been a wave of fixed-rate mortgage increases or announcements of increases for lenders such as HSBC, Nationwide, and Coventry Building Society. Accordingly, this is expected to influence market patterns going forward.
General UK Property Performance
Overall, the UK property market remains steady across its key metrics, even though there have been spikes and dips between property prices and volume of property exchanges, the extent of which is subject to noticeable variance among different regions of the UK.
However, circumspection has arisen following the mortgage rate increases from major lenders, with the expectation that more lenders will follow suit over the coming weeks. These abrupt increases have caused many experts and prospective homebuyers to readjust expectations of the UK property market in 2026.
