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The Housing Market: Trends Emerge for 2025

Welcome to our latest insight into the workings of the housing market.

This monthly snapshot give a fine grain of information on sales and rentals but this time around I’d urge readers to look at the trends more than the figures.

Why? Because the data released by Propertymark this month relates to December – that’s never a very typical month for obvious reasons connected with the Christmas holidays. Even so, there are some valuable patterns of activity which throw light on what’s happening now.

Housing market sales figures

Unsurprisingly, the average number of sales agreed per member branch saw a dip in December 2024 compared to the previous month.

But the average number of market appraisals – these are the initial assessments of a home when an owner asks an agent to give an indication of price and saleability – stood at 15 per sales agent branch.

This was a reasonable figure and perhaps higher than we might expect at a time when we think of buying presents rather than homes. But there’s a good reason for this.

In December we saw the emergence of a pattern that’s followed through to today – more smaller, low-cost properties on sale which are considered appropriate for first time buyers.

And in turn that is because there are far more first-time buyers (FTBs) looking for homes right now, ahead of a change in stamp duty on April 1. From that date, a temporary reduction in stamp duty for first timers will expire and charges will return to their previous (and higher) levels.

The rental market data

54 % of letting agents report that rents have remained generally static.

And even with a slight reduction in the number of tenants registering with agents looking for new homes to rent, it’s still the case that in December there were seven applicants for every available rental property – sadly, that 7:1 ratio is the norm, these days.

With ongoing pressures on investors, this is causing a lack of supply against growing demand. This long-standing issue needs to be addressed to provide a sustainable and effective private rented sector, and this can only be achieved by incentivising rather than penalising good landlords.

Nathan Emerson, CEO of Propertymark

What does this mean for sales in 2025?

We’ve seen something of an explosive start to the year with plenty to report on in both sales and lettings.

You won’t have missed the news that the Bank of England has cut its base rate, from 4.75% to 4.5%, forging the way for mortgage lenders to cut their rates to customers too.

Experts say anything from two to four more base rate cuts are likely from the Bank in 2025 – well, at least they agree there will be more cuts!

And the surge in first time buyer activity that I spoke of has driven average house prices up. For example the Halifax reports that in January the typical price in the UK hit £299,138.

More important for the market, however, is the fact that there’s been a big rise in the number of buyers. Rightmove reported that the first few weeks of 2025 have seen 20% more prospective purchasers contacting estate agents than in the same period last year.

More revolution for the lettings sector

Things never stay still in the rental world, it seems, and within the next few weeks the long-awaited Renters Rights Bill will become law, setting new standards for properties and more redress if there are grievances. On top of that, a government consultation is underway on plans to force landlords to improve energy efficiency in private rental properties by 2030.

Both initiatives will provide much-needed help assistance to renters, but equally they will impose substantial new costs on landlords. How these tensions play out in the rental market will be a major part of the story in 2025.

The property world never stands still, does it?

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Last Updated: February 7th, 2025