Should we be worried?

Added: 2026-06-07

[00:00:03][music] [music] >> So, welcome to this long overdue market update. Uh it's been a little while. In today's update, what I want to try and do is to reflect a little bit on where I think the market is at right now, um give you a bit of a snapshot of some stats happening across uh the various regions that we cover, and also just a very brief outlook ahead, and it will be very brief, as you will see.

[00:00:35]Uh So, okay. Let's just reflect back for a moment and and think about where we were at the start of 2026. So, as we came into this year, in truth, we were filled with optimism. 2025 had been a decent year. Mortgage rates had started to fall. There felt like a period of relative stability.

[00:00:53]And actually, the market had momentum, and it felt like we, rightly so at that time, could be quite positive about where things were going.

[00:01:01]You know, we saw more affordability, um people out there wanting to purchase.

[00:01:07]Uh transaction volumes were going to increase, and we predicted that prices over the course of the year were likely to rise by about 5 or 6%.

[00:01:16]So, as we fast forward to the end of May, as I sit here and I film this, the question is, how is that now looking?

[00:01:25]Well, I think it's fair to say that this year has provided some unexpected curveballs. So, lots of noise going on around us. The headlines uh in the media are pretty terrible at the moment. House prices are falling.

[00:01:39]The market's in turmoil. Of course, we've got all the disruption going on in the Middle East, and then, of course, what's happening as well at home with some relative political instability. And so, all of that being said, the market of 2026 has not gone quite as we would have hoped.

[00:01:57]So, what does that look like in real terms? What's the impact of that on the ground? And as a buyer or seller, how do you need to be thinking about the market? Well, let me just give you some real headline stats about what we're actually seeing happen. So, let's ignore the media, ignore the noise for a moment as I always try and do and cut through that and give you some real information.

[00:02:16]So, we use, as I've often said in these videos in the past, a data source called 28. It looks at the whole of the market and I'm going to look at the Yorkshire and Humberside market uh between the 1st of April and the 31st of May. So, we're just going to concentrate on the last 2 months and compare them with the same period last year. So, volume of new property coming to market in that time period uh is down by 2% compared to last year. The number of property sales being agreed also down, only by 2%. And then when you look at the price of the average property sale being agreed across our marketplace, just under £270,000. And actually, that's 3% higher than it was uh this time last year. So, what's going on here? We're hearing headlines suggesting that the market's in turmoil, everything's terrible, prices are falling.

[00:03:03]But actually, the stats suggest something a little bit different to that.

[00:03:08]So, I think again, let's take a step back for a moment. Let's just think about this as a real-life example.

[00:03:15]If I'm out there now as a first-time buyer looking to purchase and the average price of property is £270,000.

[00:03:21]I've got a 10% deposit. I'm going to get a mortgage over 25 years.

[00:03:26]What does that increase in mortgage rates, what does that change in the market feel like to me? Well, again, this isn't proper mortgage advice, but generally speaking, if you're taking a mortgage out of that sort, the change in rates from about 4 and 1/2% where they were at the start of the year to about 5 and 1/2%, let's call it now for that sort of mortgage, is going to result in about £142 a month difference in your mortgage.

[00:03:51]It's not an insignificant sum of money, but the question I would ask is that enough money to stop someone making their decision that they want to buy?

[00:03:59]And I suspect the answer to that is probably no. What it will do, of course, is it will make those buyers much more picky, and we are seeing now buyers with more choice, and they're being far more discerning about what they want to go and buy. They're being more choosy.

[00:04:12]They're able to make more speculative offers, and sellers need to be aware of this because it definitely has become in 2026 more of a buyer's market. But what's the lesson here? Well, the lesson is something which I've talked about again in many of these market update videos, and that is that the market continues, as it always has done really over the last 10 years, to show great resilience in the face often of adversity. There's a lot going on around us. And whilst the results are not quite this ferocious market with good price growth that we might have expected in 2026, what we're seeing clearly is that people still want to buy. They have a need to move, and they will continue to do so regardless of what noise might exist in the wider world. They will make decisions based on what they want and what they need. And that really is where I see the market right now. Definitely a buyer's market, definitely one in which sellers need to be far more aware and far more advice-driven in the decisions they make. Uh as we look through to the rest of the year, the question is how might that change? Well, I'm not going to be able to predict because I think there is a lot of stuff going on around us, but what I would say is if everything calms down a bit, if the instability we see in the wider world starts to calm, if interest rates don't go up, and I think that is important, and mortgage rates start to stabilize again, I do think the second half of 2026 could provide something much better than the first half of the year so far, and then hopefully we go beyond that. I'm going to keep filming these updates, so keep watching them, uh and I'll keep you up to date about what's happening in the market. Hit that like button, and please make sure you subscribe. Thank you so much for watching.