Plain-English answers on UK property.
How-to guides, common-question explainers, and translations of what just changed in the market. Sourced, dated, and written for the person actually doing the selling or buying.
More homes are coming to market. Buyers haven't followed.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reported on 13 August 2026 that the flow of homes coming onto the market has almost stopped shrinking, with its measure of new seller instructions recovering from a net balance of -23% in June to -4% in July. Buyer numbers did not move at all, so the homes going up for sale now are joining a queue rather than meeting fresh demand.
Do I have to tell buyers about a neighbour dispute?
Yes. The standard property information form your solicitor sends you asks directly about disputes and complaints involving your property or one nearby, past as well as present, and answering it inaccurately can unravel the sale even after completion.
My buyer changed jobs. Will their mortgage still go through?
Usually yes, and a job change is one of the more recoverable problems in a sale. What matters to the lender is not the move itself but whether the income behind the offer is still there, so a sideways step on similar pay rarely causes trouble while a drop in guaranteed pay or a switch to self-employment can.
In Essex, your street decides more than your town does
Two like-for-like Essex homes in the same town, bought and sold in the same years, end up about 10.5 percentage points of price growth apart purely because of their street. The gap between the county's strongest and weakest towns is 8.1 points.
Four in five flats didn't sell within six months
On 11 August 2026, Zoopla reported that four out of five flats put up for sale in the UK failed to find a buyer within around six months, against roughly half of all homes. If your flat has been sitting there, the reason is usually structural rather than personal, and the things that move a flat are not the same as the things that move a house.
I have leased solar panels. Will they stop my sale?
Leased solar panels rarely stop a sale, but they are one of the most reliable ways to slow one down, and almost always because the paperwork is missing rather than because the panels are a problem. Get the lease and the certificates together before you list, and this becomes an administrative step rather than the thing that costs you your buyer.
I've viewed loads of houses and none feel right
Viewing fatigue is normal, it is measurable, and it usually means your brief needs rewriting rather than that the right house does not exist. New survey data published on 12 August 2026 found excitement peaks around the fourth or fifth viewing and stress climbs steadily after the tenth, so if everything has started to blur, you are exactly where the data says you would be.
Will flood risk stop me from selling my house?
Flood risk rarely stops a sale on its own, but it changes who can buy your home and how the middle of the sale feels. The homes that sell smoothly are the ones where the seller had the flood history and the insurance position ready before the buyer's searches came back.
My buyer's deposit is a gift from family. Should I worry?
A gifted deposit is ordinary and it is not a warning sign about your buyer. It adds one round of paperwork to their mortgage and to the money laundering checks their solicitor runs, so the thing worth watching is not the gift itself, it is whether the person giving it has been asked for their documents yet.
Can my agent make my buyer see their mortgage adviser?
No, and it matters to you as much as to your buyer. An agent can ask a buyer to prove they can afford your home, but tying a viewing, an offer or its progress to the agency's own mortgage adviser is conditional selling, it is prohibited, and it can mean the strongest offer never reaches you.
The base rate hasn't moved. Your buyer's mortgage has.
The Bank of England has held the base rate at 3.75% five times in a row, but the average mortgage rate people are actually paying rose from 4.65% in June to 4.75% in July 2026. Your buyer's monthly payment is around £125 higher than it would have been in January, and that is the number shaping what they can offer you.
My buyer is a first-time buyer. Is that risky?
A first-time buyer is usually one of the safer buyers you can accept, because they have no property to sell and nothing behind them in a chain to collapse. The risk sits in a different place: their deposit and their lender, which is where your questions should go.
My buyer changed solicitors mid-sale. Should I worry?
A buyer switching conveyancer partway through is usually a sign they were unhappy with the service, not a sign they are backing out. It will cost you time, typically a few weeks, and the one thing worth checking straight away is whether the searches already paid for can be carried across to the new firm.
78 towns where recent buyers sell at a loss more often than London
Britain's map of the trapped recent buyer does not centre on London. ValuQ analysed 263,470 homes in England and Wales that were bought and sold again within five years, and found 78 towns where sellers got back less than they paid more often than they did in London.
Brentwood's recent sellers lost money twice as often as Basildon's
ValuQ compared what 444 Basildon homes sold for with what their owners had paid for them within the previous five years, and found 10.4% went for less than the purchase price. In Brentwood the rate was 20.9% and in Chelmsford 18.8%, so the cheaper town has handled the last two years better than the expensive ones.
The homes that keep coming back sell for thousands less
A home in England and Wales that has changed hands five times or more since 1995 has grown about 3.8 percentage points less than a like-for-like home in the same district, of the same type, bought and sold in the same years, that changed hands only twice. On a typical purchase price that is roughly £7,200 of gain that never arrived.
New builds cost 30% more. Do you get it back when you sell?
Figures published on 6 August 2026 put the average new-build premium in Great Britain at 30%, up from 23.7% a decade ago. You recover part of that premium when you sell, and how much depends mostly on how long you have owned the home, because your buyer prices it against the second-hand houses nearby rather than against a show home.
My buyer's solicitor wants an indemnity policy. Should I?
In most sales the answer is yes, and it is one of the cheapest problems you will be asked to solve. An indemnity policy is a one-off insurance premium, commonly between £20 and £300, that lets a sale move past a gap in the paperwork instead of waiting months for the paperwork itself.
It's completion day and the money hasn't arrived. What now?
Almost always the money is already moving and it lands later the same afternoon, because funds pass through every solicitor in the chain in order and the last transfer is the slowest. If it does not arrive at all that day your sale does not collapse: the contract has a set process for late completion, and the side that caused the delay pays for it.
Essex flat owners are further from a house than they were in 2016
The cash an Essex flat owner needs on top of their flat to buy the typical semi has grown 57% in nine years, from £105,000 to £165,000. The flat that has to pay for it grew 39%.
95% of home movers hit an unexpected cost this year
On 3 August 2026, conveyancing technology firm PEXA published research showing 95% of people who moved home in the past year met a cost they had not expected, up from 62% a year earlier. The cause it identified was timing rather than concealment: charges were explained too late for anyone to plan around them.
Someone in my chain is holding up my sale. What can I do?
A chain that has gone still is usually waiting on one link, and in most cases that link is a slow solicitor or a lender, not a buyer who has changed their mind. You can find out which by asking one specific question up the chain and one down it, and the answer tells you whether to wait or to act.
Should I move out before my house sale completes?
Moving out before exchange of contracts is the risk you want to avoid, because until contracts are exchanged your buyer can walk away and you are left paying for an empty house. Moving out between exchange and completion is far safer, and it is what most sellers who move early actually do.
Complaints about property agents rose 55% this year
The Property Ombudsman received 55% more complaints in the first half of 2026 than in the same period last year, according to figures published on 4 August 2026. The rise says more about how long and how fragile sales have become than about agents suddenly getting worse.
My buyer wants a long completion date. Should I agree?
A long completion date is common and often perfectly reasonable, so this on its own is not a warning sign. The move that protects you is to separate the two dates: agree to the long completion, but exchange contracts early, because once contracts are exchanged the buyer is legally committed and the waiting no longer carries risk.
Someone viewed my house twice. Will they make an offer?
A second viewing means you made someone's shortlist, which is genuinely good news, but it is not the same as winning. In a market carrying more homes for sale than at any point in a decade, buyers are comparing two or three serious options before they commit to one.
My flat sale is stuck waiting for the management pack
Waiting on the management pack is the most common stall in a leasehold sale, and in most cases the sale is not in trouble, it is simply queued behind a managing agent with no legal deadline to meet. Packs typically take two to six weeks, sometimes longer, and there are six things you can do this week to move yours along.
Should I take my house off the market and relist in autumn?
Taking your home off the market only gives you a genuinely fresh listing if you stay off for long enough, and on Rightmove that is 14 weeks for a sale property. A short break and a relist usually keeps the original date, so the honest question is not when to relist but what you would change if you did.
Is my house unmortgageable? What lenders refuse to lend on
A home is called unmortgageable when mainstream lenders will not lend against it because of what the property is, not because of who is buying it. Research published by the specialist lender Together on 31 July 2026 put the number at more than 1.5 million UK homes, around 6% of the housing stock, and almost all of them still sell.
Leasehold houses that bought their freehold sold 4.2 points ahead. Only 6% did it
A house in England or Wales that was leasehold when it was bought and freehold when it was sold grew 4.2 percentage points faster than a comparable house that stayed leasehold, worth about £7,600 on a typical £180,000 sale. Yet only 6.2% of leasehold houses that changed hands twice had bought their freehold in between.
Revealed: the towns where prices rose most and sales fell hardest
Homes across England and Wales are worth about a quarter more than they were before the pandemic, and roughly 100,000 fewer of them change hands each year. ValuQ analysed 3.03 million Land Registry sales and found that in 271 of 305 local authority areas, prices went up while the number of homes sold went down.
Basildon's New Town homes gained £56,000. A quarter fewer now sell.
The average home in Basildon's four New Town postcodes sold for £338,883 in the two years to March 2025, up £56,349 on the two years to March 2019. Over the same period the number of homes changing hands there fell 24%, more than twice the drop in Billericay.
Selling a home now takes 216 days: a record wait
On 31 July 2026, Rightmove reported that the average home move in Great Britain now takes 216 days from listing to completion, the longest at this point in the year since its records began. Only 62 of those days are spent finding a buyer, and the remaining 154 come after the sale has already been agreed.
My buyer's searches flagged a problem. What now?
Most things that turn up in a buyer's searches are recorded facts about the area rather than faults with your home, and the great majority of sales carry on past them. Get the exact wording from your solicitor first, find out which of three categories it falls into, and only then decide whether anything needs to change.
Someone offered on my house without viewing it. Is it real?
An offer made without a viewing is usually genuine in the sense that a real person made it, and it usually comes from a buyer who values speed over price, most often a cash buyer, an investor or a buying company. What it is not is proof of commitment, so treat it as an opening position to be tested rather than a decision to be made today.
Mortgage approvals rose in June. So did what buyers pay.
On 29 July 2026 the Bank of England reported that 58,200 mortgages were approved for house purchase in June, up from 56,600 in May. The same release showed the average rate actually paid on newly drawn mortgages climbed to 4.35%, its highest in more than a year, so more buyers are getting through the door while each one is borrowing at a higher cost.
My lease is under 80 years. Will that stop my sale?
No, a lease under 80 years does not stop you selling, and flats in exactly your position change hands every week. What it does is narrow the pool of buyers who can get a mortgage and raise the cost of extending, so the real question is not whether you can sell but whether you extend first or price for the buyer who will.
Can I sell if I still have a Help to Buy equity loan?
Yes, and you do not have to repay the loan before you sell. The equity loan is settled out of your sale proceeds on completion, but there is a separate approval process running alongside the sale, and starting it late is what pushes these completions back by weeks.
My agent's contract ended. Can they still charge a fee?
Yes, in one specific situation: if you go on to sell to a buyer that agent introduced to your property while they were instructed, they can still be owed their fee even though the contract has ended. If the buyer came from somewhere else entirely, an ended contract means no fee.
Can I sell my house with tenants living in it?
Yes, you can sell a property with tenants still living in it, and thousands of landlords do it every year. The real decision is whether you sell it tenanted to an investor buyer, or get the property back empty first, because since 1 May 2026 that second route in England takes four months' notice and comes with rules attached.
Does off-street parking add value when you sell?
Off-street parking usually helps, but its value is local rather than national, and published estimates of the premium vary far too widely to be treated as a figure for your home. What parking reliably changes is the number of buyers who will consider your property at all, and from October 2026 the running-cost gap between a home with a driveway and one without gets wider.
Should I sell my house to a cash buying company?
A cash buying company will buy your home quickly and with certainty, and it pays for that speed by offering you less than the open market would. Whether the trade is worth making comes down to one number you should work out before you answer: the gap between their offer and what competing local agents say your home is actually worth.
My buyer wants to exchange but I haven't found a house
This is one of the most common pressure points in a chain, and it does not mean you have to exchange before you are ready. You can hold the sale together while you keep looking, as long as you are straight with your buyer about the timing and you agree a shape that protects you both.
My agent already has a buyer. Should I sell off-market?
An agent who says they already have a buyer may well be telling the truth, and a quiet sale can be a perfectly good sale. The question to settle before you agree is whether one buyer, chosen by your agent, will pay what several competing buyers would.
Eight towns where first-time buyers just started paying stamp duty
In eight English local authorities, the average first-time buyer paid under £300,000 last year and is paying over it now, which means stamp duty has quietly arrived for the people buying their first home there. Ninety-one of England's 293 local authorities are now above the threshold, up from 83 a year ago, and Basildon is the closest town in the country to joining them at £386 below the line.
Basildon is the closest town in England to the stamp duty line
The average first-time buyer in Basildon paid £299,614 in May 2026, which leaves the town £386 below the £300,000 stamp duty threshold and closer to it than any other local authority in England. Basildon is only still under the line because its prices fell over the past year, while neighbouring Thurrock and Maldon both crossed it.
England's house prices rose. Its holiday-home towns fell.
Between 2023 and 2025 the median home in England rose 2.8% to £295,000. Across twenty of England's best-known holiday and second-home towns, it fell 6.8%. That gap of nearly ten percentage points is not a story about the seaside falling out of fashion. It is what happens when three separate tax changes land on the same buyer inside six months.
Is stamp duty changing? What the 100,000-name petition means
Nothing has changed yet. A public petition calling for an independent review of council tax and stamp duty closed on 23 July 2026 with 101,907 signatures, which means MPs will consider it for a Commons debate, and the rates you pay today are exactly what they were last week.
I've inherited a house. How do I sell it?
GOV.UK advises not putting an inherited property on the market until probate has been granted, and grants of probate took an average of five weeks from application in the first three months of 2026. Before then your job is to value the house as at the date of death, keep it insured and secure, and agree in writing with anyone else who inherits how the sale will work.
My buyer pulled out. Can I get my money back?
In England and Wales a buyer can walk away at any point before contracts are exchanged, and you cannot recover what you have already spent from them. What you can do is work out which of your costs still carry value into the next sale, and most of them do.
Am I competing with more sellers than usual right now?
You are competing with a lot of homes, but fewer and fewer of them are new. Rightmove's July index, published on 20 July 2026, put the number of homes for sale close to a 12-year high for the time of year, while the RICS survey published on 9 July 2026 showed the flow of fresh listings falling at its fastest rate in more than a year.
I have no building regs for my extension. Can I sell?
Yes, you can sell a home with work that was never signed off, and it happens in thousands of sales a year. There are two settled routes through it, an indemnity policy or a regularisation certificate, and the one thing that costs sellers money is picking up the phone to the council before deciding which route they want.
My buyer's survey found Japanese knotweed. What now?
Knotweed on a survey is a delay far more often than it is a dead sale, and the route through it is well worn. Since the RICS professional standard took effect on 23 March 2022, surveyors judge knotweed by whether it is being managed rather than by how close it grows to the house, and most lenders will proceed on a treatment plan from an accredited contractor backed by a 10 year guarantee.
Asking prices fell 1% in July. Is my house worth less?
Rightmove reported on 20 July 2026 that the average asking price on newly listed homes fell 1% this month, down 3,832 pounds to 372,359 pounds. That is a fall in what sellers are asking, not in what homes are selling for, and the two move differently.
Can I ask my estate agent to redo my listing photos?
Yes, and you should ask if the listing is not working. Put the request in writing, say exactly what you want changed and by when, and check the listing yourself first so the conversation is about specifics rather than a feeling.
A new estate went up near you. Flats and terraces pay for it, semis barely notice
If a large new estate has gone up near you, how much it cost your own home depends far more on what kind of home you own than on how much was built. Across every Essex postcode sector, flats and terraced houses in heavily built-around areas grew about seven percentage points less over eleven years than similar homes in quiet areas. Semi-detached houses grew 1.7 points less, which is close to nothing.
Family homes lost value in 53 areas last year. None were northern.
The typical second-hand family home in England and Wales sold for £290,000 last year, up 3.2% on 2024. Underneath that national rise sit 53 local authorities where the typical family home sold for less than it did the year before, and not one of them is in the North of England.
Basildon homes gained £8,500 last year. Dagenham gained £20,000.
The typical second-hand family home in Basildon sold for £375,000 last year, up £8,500 on 2024. Along the same c2c line, homes in Dagenham gained £20,000 and homes in Grays and Tilbury rose almost twice as fast as Basildon's did.
Do I have to tell buyers about problems with my house?
You do not have to point out every flaw a buyer could spot for themselves, but you must answer the seller's property information form, the TA6, truthfully and never actively hide a problem you know about. Getting this wrong can lead to a misrepresentation claim after completion, so when you are unsure, the safe and standard advice is to disclose.
When should I instruct my solicitor after an offer?
Instruct your solicitor the moment you have accepted an offer, ideally the same day, because getting the legal work moving early is the single biggest thing you can do to keep your sale on track. Instructing a solicitor is cheap and easily paused, so it is one of the few big steps you can safely take before your buyer has proved they are serious.
Is it a buyer's or a seller's market right now?
In the middle of 2026 the UK is tilted toward buyers, not sellers. There is more choice on the market, buyers are in less of a hurry, and asking prices are being trimmed to meet them, which means homes priced realistically still sell while over-ambitious ones sit.
Is summer a slow time to sell a house?
Summer is usually a little slower than spring, but homes still sell right through it, and a well-priced house finds a buyer in most weeks of the year. The season matters far less than your price, your photos and your timing, and all three are yours to control.
Mortgage rates are falling again: what it means for your sale
In early July 2026, six mortgage lenders cut their rates within a single 24 hours, with Nationwide cutting for the fourth time in a month, and the Bank of England has held the base rate at 3.75%. For sellers this is quietly good news: cheaper borrowing lets more buyers afford your home, but with a near-record number of homes for sale, the price you set still decides how fast yours moves.
Can I complain about my estate agent, and what can I get?
Yes. Every UK estate agent that sells homes must by law belong to a free, independent redress scheme, so if yours has treated you unfairly you complain to the agent first in writing, then escalate to their ombudsman if it is not resolved within eight weeks.
Should I reduce my asking price to attract buyers?
If your home has sat without offers, a well-judged price reduction is often the single most effective way to bring buyers back, and in mid-2026 you are far from alone in making one. The key is to reduce early and by a meaningful amount rather than in small, repeated drops, because today's market rewards homes that look sensibly priced from the start.
Should I use the solicitor my estate agent recommends?
You are never obliged to use the conveyancer your estate agent recommends, and it is worth pausing before you say yes. The recommendation can be perfectly good, but agents often receive a referral fee for it, which they must disclose to you, so the choice should be yours on the merits rather than made by default.
The housing market is steadying: what it means for sellers
On 9 July 2026, surveyors reported the first clear signs of the housing market steadying after months of decline, even though buyer demand and agreed sales are still below normal. For sellers it means the market is holding rather than climbing, so the winning move is to price to the buyers in front of you and sell on your own timeline, not to wait for a surge the data does not promise.
One agent valued my house much higher. Should I pick them?
A much higher valuation from one agent is common, and on its own it is not proof your home is worth more. The highest number is the easiest one for an agent to say and the hardest one to actually deliver, so treat it as a claim to be tested, not a prize to be grabbed.
A full-price offer on day one: accept it or hold out?
A fast offer at or near the asking price usually means your home was priced right and a ready buyer moved quickly, not that you set the price too low. Do not reject it on a hunch, but do slow down long enough to check the buyer is real and to weigh a solid offer in hand against the hope of a better one that may never come.
The Halifax house price index is now Lloyds: what changed?
On 7 July 2026, the long-running Halifax House Price Index was published for the first time under a new name: the Lloyds House Price Index. The figures are worked out exactly as before, so the change is a badge and not a break, and the June reading showed the average UK home up 0.2% at £299,330.
A buyer offered but needs to sell first. Should I accept?
Yes, you can accept an offer from a buyer who still has their own home to sell, and plenty of these sales complete happily. The trick is to judge the offer on how far along their own sale is, not on how keen they sound, and to keep your big decisions gated on real progress.
My buyer keeps delaying completion. Should I worry?
A completion date that shifts once or twice is common and usually down to solicitors, mortgage paperwork, or getting everyone in the chain onto the same day. It becomes a worry when the date keeps slipping with no clear reason, so the job is to find the cause and, if you have already exchanged, use the tools that force a firm date.
Why do Nationwide and Halifax give different house prices?
They disagree because each one measures a different thing at a different stage of the sale, so no two indices are counting the same homes. In June 2026 the average UK home ranged from about £270,000 to £376,000 depending only on which index you read, which is why a single national average never tells you what your own home is worth.
Should I sell my house now, or wait for a better market?
For most people, the right time to sell is when your own life is ready to move, not when you think you have called the top of the market. Trying to time house prices rarely beats a clear plan, and in mid-2026 the market is steady enough that a well-priced home is still selling.
My house has been on the market for months. What should I do?
A home that has sat unsold for months almost always comes down to one of three things: the price, how it shows in photos and viewings, or the agent behind it. All three are fixable, so a stale listing is a solvable problem, not a dead one.
Does my estate agent have to tell me about every offer?
Yes. By law your estate agent must pass on every offer to you promptly and in writing, right up until contracts are exchanged, unless you have told them in writing to stop. Holding an offer back, or being slow to tell you about one, breaks the rules that all UK estate agents work under.
My buyer's mortgage was declined. What happens to my sale?
A declined mortgage does not automatically end your sale, and it happens more often than most sellers realise. Your buyer may still be approved by a different lender, so the first job is to find out why it was refused before you assume the worst.
Should I accept a cash buyer or one with a mortgage?
A cash buyer usually means a faster, safer sale, because there is no mortgage that can be declined or down-valued along the way. But a higher offer from a mortgaged buyer can still be the better deal, so the choice comes down to how much certainty is worth to you against the size of the offer.
My buyer wants to wait for a cheaper mortgage rate. Should I?
If your buyer wants to hold off to grab a slightly lower mortgage rate, a short and dated pause is usually fine, but an open-ended one is not. The safe move is to let your own side keep moving, set a clear deadline, and read the buyer by what they have actually spent rather than what they say.
I'm getting viewings but no offers. What should I do?
Viewings without offers almost always points to one thing: the home is good enough to visit but something is stopping people committing, and nine times out of ten that something is the price or a repeated piece of feedback. The fix is to gather the feedback, test your price against real sold data, and act within a couple of weeks rather than waiting and hoping.
The towns going backwards as Britain's housing recovery splits in two
Britain's house price indices say the market is recovering, and on average it is. But the official record of what homes actually changed hands for shows a split market: in nine of the 44 English towns ValuQ analysed, the typical home sold for less in 2025 than in 2024, and some of England's strongest and weakest towns sit inside the same region.
In Basildon, the year you bought decides if you're up £87,000 or down £7,000
Nationally, house prices are recovering, and Basildon is part of it: the average home sold for £341,335 in 2025, up 2.9% on the year. But whether you have actually made money on your Basildon home comes down almost entirely to the year you bought, because a 2016 buyer is up around £86,905 while someone who bought at the 2022 peak is roughly £6,794 behind on the average.
Can I take my mortgage with me when I sell?
In most cases, yes. The majority of UK fixed-rate mortgages are portable, which means you can move your existing deal to your new home instead of paying it off and starting again.
My buyer's solicitor keeps raising enquiries. Is that bad?
In almost all cases this is normal, not a warning sign. Raising enquiries is exactly what a buyer's solicitor is paid to do, and a long list usually means they are being thorough, not that your sale is in trouble.
How do I know if my buyer is actually serious?
You judge a buyer by what they have spent and instructed, not by what they say. A serious buyer books a survey, submits a mortgage application, and instructs a solicitor; a hesitant one keeps talking while spending nothing.
My buyer's mortgage offer is about to expire. What happens?
A buyer's mortgage offer running out rarely ends a sale. Most lenders will extend the offer or re-issue a fresh one when the buyer asks, so the usual result is a short delay, not a collapse.
My buyer wants to move in before completion. Should I?
In almost every case the safe answer is no, at least not before completion. Letting a buyer in early hands them the keys to a home they do not yet own or pay for, and it can be very hard to remove them if the sale then collapses.
My estate agent wants me to drop the price. Should I?
If your agent is suggesting a price cut, it usually means your home has had time on the market without the offers you both hoped for. Sometimes that advice is exactly right, and sometimes it is a sign the home was valued too high at the start, so the way to decide is to look at the viewing and offer data, not the agent's opinion alone.
House prices picked up in June: what it means for sellers
UK house prices grew 2.2% over the year to June 2026, up from 1.7% in May, according to Nationwide's index published on 1 July 2026. That points to a market steadying rather than surging, and what it means for you depends far more on your town and street than on any national headline.
My buyer's survey flagged damp. What should I do?
A damp note on a survey is one of the most common findings in UK homes, and it is rarely the dealbreaker it feels like. The calm first move is to find out exactly which type of damp the surveyor saw before you agree to any price cut or any repair.
Do I pay estate agent fees if my house doesn't sell?
With most high-street estate agent contracts you pay nothing if your home does not sell, because they run on a no sale, no fee basis. The catch is in the contract type and the small print, so the real answer depends on exactly what you signed.
My buyer wants to drop the price after the survey. Should I?
A survey-driven request to cut the price is one of the most common moments in a sale, and it does not mean the deal is dead. Look at what the survey actually found, decide what it is fairly worth, and you stay in control of the number.
Should I take my house off the market when I accept an offer?
There is no rule that forces you to come off the market the moment you accept an offer, and the choice is yours. The safe move is to gauge how committed your buyer really is first, then come fully off the market once they have put their own money down.
Exchange of contracts vs completion: what's the difference?
Exchange of contracts is the moment your house sale becomes legally binding; completion is the day ownership and the keys actually change hands. In England and Wales they are two separate steps, usually a few days to a few weeks apart, and that gap is normal.
The 28 towns where flats fell while the houses next door rose
Across 46 English towns ValuQ analysed, the average flat lost value over the past year in 28 of them, while the semi-detached houses on the same streets gained. In places like Southampton, Medway and Colchester a flat is worth thousands of pounds less than a year ago, even as the family homes around it kept rising.
Basildon flats fell £10,000 this year while its houses barely moved
The average flat in the Basildon area is worth about £10,000 less than it was a year ago, while the town's semi-detached and terraced houses barely moved. Official Land Registry figures show Basildon flats down 5.2% in the year to April 2026, against a 0.3% dip for semis and a 0.5% dip for terraces.
Asking prices just had their biggest June drop in 14 years
On 15 June 2026, Rightmove reported that the average asking price for a UK home fell 0.6% in June, a drop of £2,113 to £376,191 and the biggest June fall in fourteen years. The plain takeaway for sellers is that buyers have a lot of choice right now and are walking past homes that are priced too high.
Sub-4% mortgages are back, even with the base rate on hold
Through June 2026, major lenders including NatWest, Halifax and Santander cut their fixed mortgage rates, bringing the cheapest two-year fixes back below 4% for buyers with large deposits. This happened even though the Bank of England held its base rate at 3.75% on 18 June, and it matters to sellers because cheaper borrowing puts more able buyers in the market.
What fixtures and fittings do I leave when I sell?
When you sell in England or Wales, anything fixed to the property (a fitted kitchen, built-in wardrobes, radiators) is assumed to stay unless you say otherwise, while free-standing items (sofas, curtains, a plug-in fridge) are yours to take. You record exactly what stays and what goes on a form called the TA10, which becomes legally binding once contracts are exchanged.
What is conveyancing and how long does it take?
Conveyancing is the legal work that transfers ownership of a property from the seller to the buyer, handled by a solicitor or licensed conveyancer. In 2026 it typically takes about 16 to 20 weeks from offer acceptance to completion, though a simple, chain-free sale can finish in as little as 8 weeks.