Q2 2026 in Review
What's Really Happening in the UK Property Market?
If you've been keeping half an eye on the headlines, you'll have seen the usual mix of doom and cautious optimism about the UK housing market this year. But what does the data actually say?
TwentyCi and TwentyEA's Q2 2026 Property & Homemover Report cuts through the noise with real transaction data covering 99.6% of UK sale and rental activity, and the picture is more nuanced than the headlines suggest.
Here's what stood out.
Sellers are Listing. Buyers are Hesitating
New property listings are up 2.7% year to date compared with 2025, continuing a decade long trend of rising supply. But buyer demand has softened, with sales agreed volumes down 5.0% over the same period. May and June were particularly weak, with demand falling 8.1%, a slowdown TwentyCi expects to feed through into softer transaction numbers later in the year.
The result: more choice for buyers, but a market where sellers are having to work harder to convert interest into offers.
Mortgage rates are the story behind the story
Much of this year's hesitancy traces back to mortgage pricing. Swap rate volatility pushed fixed rates back above 5% for many borrowers during the spring, driven in part by uncertainty around the conflict in the Middle East. The Bank of England has held the Bank Rate at 3.75% to keep a lid on inflation rather than resuming cuts. Combined with ongoing cost of living pressure, it's created a cautious buying environment, even as underlying demand to move remains real.
There are early signs rates are easing again, which could bring hesitant buyers back off the fence in the second half of the year.
Transactions are down, but only because last year was unusual
HMRC transaction volumes are 6.2% below 2025 levels year to date. That sounds alarming until you remember why: last year's figures were inflated by buyers rushing to beat stamp duty threshold changes. Strip that out, and this year's volumes are still comfortably ahead of both 2023 (+15.7%) and 2024 (+12.8%). TwentyCi is forecasting around 1.15 million transactions for 2026, down on 2025's 1.21 million, but above 2024.
It's an older, wealthier buyer's market right now
One of the report's most striking findings is how much the age and income profile of movers has shifted. Homemovers aged 66+ drove the largest share of growth, up 40.6% year on year, while those aged 46 to 65 grew 14.6% and now account for over 40% of all exchanges.
At the other end of the spectrum, 18 to 25 year olds saw exchanges fall by 58.4%, their share of the market dropping from 3.1% to just 1.3%. The same pattern shows up in income data: exchanges fell across every household income band below £70,000, while the £150k+ bracket grew 31.3%.
The takeaway for anyone marketing to homemovers: the buyer who's actually moving right now looks quite different to the one you might picture. Older, more established, and less price sensitive.
The rental market's first bit of good news in five years
After half a decade of shrinking rental stock, available rental supply rose 2.9% year on year in June 2026, the first increase since 2021. Ten of the UK's thirteen regions saw stock levels grow, with Wales leading at 20.4%.
That said, it's not all landlords staying put. TwentyCi's analysis shows 834,800 properties, 18.6% of all private rental stock, have left the sector entirely this decade, with the highest exit volume in 2025 as the Renters' Rights Act took shape. The rise in available stock is coming largely from purpose built rental developments (build to rent), with advertising for these properties up 22% year on year, rather than a wave of landlords returning.
Rents themselves have barely moved: the average let agreed price is down just 0.6% over three years, meaning affordability pressure hasn't really eased.
Moving home still takes far too long
Perhaps the most sobering statistic in the whole report: the average UK property transaction now takes seven months to complete, up from 5.5 months in 2019. Time to exchange has crept up to 130 days, and 60.8% of exchanges now take longer than six months from instruction, up from 36% in 2019.
That matters practically too: property searches expire after six months, meaning a majority of transactions now risk needing searches refreshed or re run before completion. The government's Home Buying and Selling Reform Roadmap, published in June, aims to tackle this through upfront property information, digitisation and earlier binding agreements, but change will take time.
The bigger picture
Despite geopolitical uncertainty, a change of Prime Minister, and ongoing affordability pressure, the underlying story is one of resilience rather than collapse. As TwentyCi CEO Colin Bradshaw puts it, supply is at a decade high and fall throughs are falling; committed buyers and sellers are still finding ways to get deals done, even in a tougher market.
This article draws on data and analysis from the TwentyCi & TwentyEA Property & Homemover Report, Q2 2026 (https://2155999.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/2155999/TwentyCi%20Homemover%20and%20Property%20report%20Q2%202026.pdf), based on 99.6% of UK residential sale and rental transactions.
