The Housing Market: Full Steam Ahead for 2025
It’s clear already that the housing market is shaping up for a busy year ahead.
There are three trends to bear in mind now – stamp duty changes, first time buyers and of course interest rates. I’ll explain more as we go along.
Housing market sales figures
The raw housing market data here is encouraging for anyone wanting to sell or buy a house this spring.
According to Propertymark each branch saw an average of 87 new prospective buyers registering in January alone. Likewise, an average 10.5 homes were registered for sale that month.
Both figures are better than expected for so early in the year but drill deeper and we find an even stronger set of indicators. The number of completed sales in January was no less than 20% up on the same month a year earlier – and there were an average 2.5 viewings per home on sale, even in the rather bleak month of January!
2025 housing market trends
Those figures will of course improve as the market gets busier from now on, but they indicate a lot of early-year positivity, and here’s where some of those other factors kick in.
Much of the busy-ness in the sales market is down to buyers trying to beat a stamp duty deadline on April 1, when temporary duty reductions return to their previous higher levels. In particular, first-time buyers benefited from the temporary cuts – so flats have seen especially high demand.
More generally (and this will be a factor affecting the housing market for the rest of 2025) it’s all eyes on interest rates. There was a cut in February and experts predict anything from two to four more cuts this year.
Even the anticipation of cuts fuels much more confidence amongst buyers and sellers, and in my opinion that’s why we’ve seen strong market indicators right from the start of 2025. Recent figures from the major indices show prices showing modest and steady increases, and this seems likely to be the story of this year.
One more thing to add on the sales market, and it’s a plea to buyers and sellers to manage expectations on how long it takes to move home these days.
Many agents say it averages 17 weeks or more between a seller accepting an offer and the exchange of contracts, which guarantees the sale will go ahead.
Regular readers will know of my frustration over this (and the public’s frustration too). Everyone from agents to solicitors to surveyors know it’s a problem but so far, it’s not been cracked: until it is, buyers and sellers need to factor in this lengthy timescale.
The rental market data
Here are the headline figures. No significant change in the number of properties available for rent at each Propertymark agency branch – 12.3. The typical number of new tenancies agreed per branch is around eight.
Again, there’s an underlying figure that I regard as the most important: that is, there’s an average of nine applicants for each property on the market to rent. This is why government figures show average rents in England rising a hefty 8.5% in the past year.
That nine-to-one ratio is actually better than the picture about two years ago, and even with hefty rent rises there’s no sign of rent arrears rising.
But, by way of context, my fear is things might get worse if more landlords sell up and rental stock diminishes. There’s a radical shake-up in rental and energy efficiency legislation on its way for the private rental sector, and it remains to be seen if this will make some landlords quit – even if those measures are undoubtedly good news for tenants.
The coming months for the housing market
The world moves faster these days than ever before, so that makes forecasting more difficult.
Currently there’s every reason to sell and buy this year, especially with interest rates set to fall gradually. Easter weekend in April is traditionally the starting gun for sales, and I anticipate a flurry of activity.
In late March, however, there will be another major financial statement by the government and that – along with the volatile international landscape – may change the picture at least slightly. And also in late March, we’ll see whether the Bank of England goes for another interest rate cut or plays it safe and waits until later in the year.
I’ll be back in a few weeks to see whether a change has taken place, or whether it’s still full steam ahead for the sales sector. Until then…
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Last Updated: March 11th, 2025
