The UK housing market is experiencing a remarkable resurgence, with the average asking price of a British home rising by a staggering £9,893 in just five weeks, the largest monthly increase in a decade, according to data from the property website Rightmove.
This sudden uptick in prices comes after a slump in activity in the lead-up to the November budget, as speculation about potential property tax changes led many homeowners and house hunters to put their plans on hold. However, the Bank of England’s interest rate cut just before Christmas has given the market a much-needed boost, reigniting optimism among buyers and sellers.
Rightmove’s data shows that the average new seller asking price rose by 2.8% month-on-month, taking the typical figure to £368,031. This, the company says, is the largest increase in the month of January in 25 years and the biggest rise in any month since June 2015.
Jeremy Leaf, a north London estate agent and former Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) residential chair, attributes the surge in activity to falling mortgage rates and easing inflation. “Buyers and sellers,” he says, “breathed a collective sigh of relief” when the budget’s property tax changes turned out to be “not as punitive as many expected.”
In the run-up to the chancellor’s November statement, there was intense speculation about potential stamp duty changes, with TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp warning that “people are in a panic” about the issue. However, the main property measure announced was the “mansion tax,” a council tax surcharge for homes in England worth more than £2 million.
Rightmove’s data suggests that home movers are returning to the market, with buyer demand rising by 57% in the two weeks after Christmas compared to the two weeks before, while the number of newly listed homes for sale jumped by 81%.
While the figures will be welcomed by many homeowners, they may not be so well received by prospective first-time buyers who are already struggling to get on the property ladder. Colleen Babcock, a property expert at Rightmove, however, notes that asking prices “are only back to where they were in the summer of 2025, before the budget rumours began surfacing.”
The headline figures also mask significant regional variations, with the East of England recording a 3% month-on-month increase in asking prices, while the East Midlands and Scotland saw price falls of 0.6% and 0.4%, respectively.
Separate data from the estate agent Hampton also shows that average private rents in Great Britain ended 2025 below where they started, dipping by 0.7% over the full calendar year – the first time this has happened since the company’s records began in 2011. This means the average tenant moving into a property paid £10 less per month than 12 months earlier, at £1,371.
