Demand has held up well as estate agents’ concerns grow over the Chancellor’s Budget and how policy changes might affect affordability, supply and transaction pipelines.

TwentyEA’s data shows new listings have passed 1.5 million so far this year, and agreed sales are now over a million.

Both metrics are ahead of last year, with supply up 3.3% and demand up 4.1% at the end of October. The demand-to-supply ratio now stands at 72.4%, higher than at the same point in 2023 and 2024 and signalling the strongest underlying demand seen since 2022.

At this point, all eyes are focused on the Chancellor’s Budget, which obviously falls much later than usual, to see what policy changes may emerge.”

Katy Billany (pictured), Executive Director at TwentyEA, says: “At this point, all eyes are focused on the Chancellor’s Budget, which obviously falls much later than usual, to see what policy changes may emerge.

Any measures that boost affordability or encourage transactions will help sustain the positive momentum we’ve seen across most regions throughout 2025.”

October’s year-on-year figures do show that there was a dip in demand (-2.7%), but that is because, according to TwentyEA, there was unusually high activity in October 2024, as falling mortgage rates pushed buyers to accelerate purchases before last year’s Budget.

In the current market, however, detached and semi-detached homes are continuing to see rising interest, with the demand-to-supply ratio for detached properties up 4.6% annually.

Prices softening

Instruction prices have softened slightly, though, with the average original asking price down 0.8% (£3,700) compared with last year. Any increases are concentrated in the North and Midlands, while prices in the South remain flat or falling. Inner London is the only region where annual instruction prices have dropped by more than 3%.

And price reductions have now exceeded one million this year, a 14% rise on 2024. In addition, 38.7% of concluded listings have had at least one reduction, compared with 38.0% last year and reductions are rising across all price brackets, with the £1m+ segment seeing the sharpest increase. Inner London had the biggest regional jump, up 2.9 percentage points.