The supply of new homes listed for sale in the UK has now surpassed 1.5 million year to date, while sales agreed (SSTCs) exceed 1 million, according to data from TwentyEA.
All eyes in the property sector are now on the Budget on 26 November, with agents keen to see how upcoming policies might affect housing supply and buyer demand.
For now, both supply and demand remain resilient, up 3.3% and 4.1% respectively compared with last year. Buyer demand is at its highest level since 2022, with a current demand-to-supply ratio of 72.4%, exceeding figures for both 2023 and 2024.
Although demand fell by 2.7% year-on-year in October, this is likely to represent only a temporary blip. October 2024 saw exceptionally high activity as falling interest rates prompted buyers to rush transactions ahead of the 30 October Budget.
Property types
While both demand and supply have risen for all property types, there are still changes happening with detached and semi-detached houses getting more popular. For detached homes, the demand to supply ratio has risen by 4.6% versus the prior year.
Prices
The average original instruction price in 2025 has fallen by 0.8% (£3,700) in the last year and on a regional basis, instruction prices are mostly increasing in the North and Midlands, whilst prices in the south are static or falling.
Inner London is the only region to see year on year prices fall by more than 3%.
Meanwhile, the number of price reductions have now exceeded one million so far this year and is 14% higher YoY.
The percentage of properties having price reductions has also increased, but only marginally. In 2025 so far, 38.7% of concluded listings had at least one price reduction, in 2024, this was 38.0%.
Compared with last year, the price changes have increased in all bands with £1m+ properties standing out, where reduction rates have increased by 3 percentage points.
In general, price reductions are reducing in the North and increasing in London and the South. Inner London has seen a 2.9 percentage point increase and this is by far the worst affected region of the UK.
Katy Billany, executive director of TwentyEA, said: “The data shows that both supply and demand remain resilient despite a dip in October and hopefully we’ll start to see demand increasing again once we have some clarity following the Autumn Budget.
“With more homes on the market, motivated sellers are adjusting their expectations and offering more competitive pricing, leading to increased levels of price reductions, now more than one million so far this year.
“At this point, all eyes are focussed 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.”
