Property transactions have risen sharply as buyers race to complete before a forthcoming increase in stamp duty.
Data from Rightmove shows that home sales agreed in January were 15% higher than usual, with demand up by 8% and the number of new property listings rising by 13%.
Under current rules, first-time buyers pay no tax on homes up to £425,000, but this threshold will revert to £300,000 in April. The drive to complete in time has boosted market activity, while sellers remain cautious with pricing. Rightmove reports that the average asking price of properties coming to market rose by 0.5% to £367,994 last month—“muted” for the season, given the high volume of listings.
Colleen Babcock, a property expert at Rightmove, said: “New sellers are showing some pricing restraint after a fast start to the year, being mindful of both the high level of seller competition, and in England also of the looming stamp duty deadline and extra costs for some buyers.”
At the same time, mortgage demand appears to be gathering pace, with the number of people applying for a mortgage in principle via Rightmove up 49% annually to a new record. The Bank of England’s decision to cut the base rate from 4.75% to 4.5% has triggered a wave of lower mortgage offers from major lenders, including Santander, Barclays, Lloyds Bank and Yorkshire Building Society.
Matt Smith, a mortgage expert at Rightmove, said: “We hope this is the beginning of a sustained period of rates slowly heading downwards, and while we’re unlikely to see major falls across the board, we’ve already seen the first sub-4% rates of 2025.”
Recent house price surveys from Nationwide and Halifax suggest only modest price rises, despite predictions of a downturn amid rising borrowing costs. With wage growth and low unemployment helping buoy the market, interest rates on new mortgage deals have now fallen to their lowest level since April 2023.