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Halloween was the most popular day to move house in 2025, according to new analysis, breaking the long-established pattern of summer being the busiest period for home moves.
Data reviewed by Compare My Move, covering more than 170,000 house moves during the year, shows that just under 2,500 people relocated on October 31, making it the single busiest moving day of 2025. October also emerged as the busiest month overall, marking a shift away from the summer peak seen in previous years.
The change appears to be driven by altered buying behaviour, with more purchasers completing transactions in late summer rather than earlier in the season. This shift pushed completions into autumn, contributing to October overtaking the summer months as the busiest period for home moves in 2025.
At the end of March, the temporary stamp duty relief came to an end, meaning homebuyers returned to paying full stamp duty rates from April 1st. This triggered two immediate effects: a surge in completed moves in March, with activity up 50% compared to March 2024, followed by a sharp slowdown once the relief ended. In fact, there was a 31.5% drop in movers between March and April.
This spike and subsequent lull delayed the usual summer rush, pushing buyer activity into late summer and early autumn instead. As a result, September and October saw a noticeable increase in completed moves.
Between the start and end of 2025, the Bank Rate fell by one percentage point, following a steady downward trend throughout the year. One of the most significant moments came in August, when the rate dropped to 4%, its lowest level since March 2023.
This milestone likely encouraged buyers who had been holding off earlier in the year to move forward in late summer, having waited for borrowing costs to reach that level. As a result, this surge in buying activity would have translated into a higher number of completions and moves during the autumn months.
Compare My Move has established why October stood out as the busiest month for moving house in 2025, but why did Halloween become the most popular moving day?
Dave Sayce, co-founder and managing director of Compare My Move, explained: “The fact that Halloween was the most popular day to move house has nothing to do with the holiday itself and everything to do with when it fell. Fridays are the most popular day for moving, accounting for 28% of all moves last year. This is because key services such as solicitors and banks are still operating, while movers also have the weekend ahead to unpack and settle in.
“The end of the month is also typically a busy time for completions, as many transactions are structured to finish then. Completing at month-end helps align mortgage repayments with the start of the following month, which is particularly useful for people paid at the end of the month. It also helps movers avoid paying overlapping monthly costs from the previous month.”
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