Property Market Update | July 2026
July is traditionally a quiet month in the property world. Holidays take priority, attention drifts, and the market always eases a little while everyone's somewhere else. This year had its own particular shape to it though, so below we've walked through what the headlines actually meant, what's really going on with mortgage rates, and what it all means if you're thinking about moving in the weeks ahead.
July in Review
On the surface, July looked like a soft month. Rightmove's data showed the average asking price for a newly listed home easing by 1%, around £3,832, to £372,359. Read in isolation that sounds like a market losing confidence, and it's true that the slowdown was sharper than usual: sales agreed were down 9% compared with the same point last year, according to Zoopla, making it the quietest month of trading so far in 2026.
But behind that headline is a more familiar summer story. Sellers also had more company than usual this year, with the number of homes for sale sitting close to its highest level in over a decade. In a market with genuinely more choice, sensible pricing from day one becomes the thing that actually determines how quickly a home sells, rather than a soft asking price being read as a falling market.
That's borne out in the detail. Nearly three quarters of homes that have sold so far this year did so without ever needing a price reduction, and homes priced correctly from the outset are selling in an average of 36 days. Those that needed correcting along the way took an average of 127 days, well over three times as long. The headline might say the market slowed. The more useful story is that pricing discipline is doing more of the work than it used to.
Interest Rates: What's Actually Moving
Much of the caution buyers have shown through the summer traces back to mortgage rates rather than house prices themselves. Rates had been easing steadily through the spring, dropping from a peak of close to 5% in April to around 4.65% by June, before edging back up to roughly 4.75% in July as global uncertainty, including the conflict in Iran, pushed borrowing costs higher again. Since the start of the year, that movement has added somewhere in the region of £125 a month, or £1,500 a year, to repayments for a typical buyer. It's a real number, and it's understandably made some buyers pause rather than pull out of the market altogether.
The picture isn't uniformly discouraging though. Lenders remain genuinely keen to lend and are competing hard on rate, and wages are still rising faster than house prices nationally, which continues to support affordability even while rates sit higher than many would like. We'd stop short of guessing where rates go from here, nobody has a reliable read on that at the moment, but it's worth understanding what's actually driving the caution rather than assuming it's about property values.
The Regional Picture
Nationally, annual price growth has slowed to around 1.3%, down from 1.7% a year ago, and the South East has been among the more cautious regions this year, with sold prices running below where they were twelve months back. That's the honest picture and we won't pretend otherwise. What it doesn't capture is the difference presentation and pricing make within it. Homes across Surrey and Kent that are genuinely well presented and sensibly priced are still finding buyers at pace. It's the ones leaning on last year's expectations that are sitting.
If You're Thinking of Selling
The clearest lesson from this year's data is that the gap between a home that sells quickly and one that drags on has almost nothing to do with the wider market and almost everything to do with how it's priced and presented from day one. With more homes for sale than usual, buyers have real choice, which makes a strong, honest first impression matter more than it has in years. Autumn is traditionally one of the busier windows in the property calendar, and it's worth using the weeks before then to make sure your home is genuinely ready rather than adjusting course once it's already live. If you're weighing up timing, we're always glad to talk it through honestly, including whether now is actually the right moment for you specifically.
If You're Buying
For buyers, this is a market that rewards patience and preparation rather than urgency. There's more choice than there's been in years, lenders are competing for your business, and sellers who are pricing realistically are open to a genuine conversation rather than facing a rush of competing offers. Having your mortgage agreement in principle ready and your onward position sorted before you start viewing seriously will put you in a much stronger place when the right home does come up.
Our Read
We try not to get too swept up in the monthly headlines, and July's numbers are a good example of why. Read at face value, a falling asking price and a quieter month of sales can sound like a market losing its nerve. Read properly, it's a market where the fundamentals, sensible pricing and honest presentation, are working exactly as they should. That's always been our approach at Maison, and it's exactly why we believe it continues to work regardless of which way the wider headlines are pointing. If you'd like an honest conversation about your own plans, whether you're buying, selling, or simply keeping an eye on things, we're always happy to help.
