Press Round Up September 2025

Tue 14 Oct 2025

The average price of a home fell in August for the fourth time in six months, according to Nationwide building society. Jeremy Leaf, principal of Jeremy Leaf & Co, told City AM: “With so much property still overhanging the market, many buyers are seizing the opportunity of negotiating hard whereas worried sellers often have no option but to agree revised terms in order for the transaction to proceed.” He explained further to Forbes: "Looking forward, we don’t see much change and certainly not much chance of a strong rebound in prices, given concerns about autumn tax rises, particularly for the property market."

The rental market declined at its fastest rate since the pandemic last month, as landlords exited the sector, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Jeremy Leaf told The Telegraph: “We have noticed recently many tenants appear to have reached an affordability ceiling just as we are approaching the busiest time of the year for lettings activity. Many are finding it increasingly difficult to meet what they perceive as unrealistic landlord aspirations for new and renewed rents despite the ongoing drop in stock partly prompted by landlords leaving the sector."

The Office for National Statistics also reports that annual growth in house prices is slowing, with prices increasing by 2.8 per cent in the 12 months to July, compared with 3.6 per cent in the year to June. Jeremy Leaf told The Daily Mail: “Over the past few weeks, buyers and sellers have become more cautious, not helped by continuing high inflation and mortgage rates not falling as quickly as anticipated until some clear direction is received from Government as to Budget policy. We may not know until the end of November so until then nervousness is likely to prevail with buyers, particularly those not dependent on the sale of another property or requiring little or no finance, holding sway."

Should you take your property off the market if it is not selling and relaunch at a lower price? Jeremy Leaf told The Times: “Compare your property with others that are selling or not selling, and see how long they have been on the market, as well as your own experiences: your views on the agent’s website, how many physical viewings you had, how many calls or emails. If you had lots of interest and lost out because a chain broke down, maybe the price doesn’t need changing. But we often find that readjusting the photos and the price can make quite a difference. If the property is on at £1 million, if you come down just below it, it may bring more people to the table who didn’t see it before."

Those buying homes in London 500 metres away from a tube or train station pay £42,700 more on average than those buying 1,500 metres away, according to a new survey from Nationwide building society. Jeremy Leaf told The Guardian: “The pandemic accelerated trends which were starting to happen anyway, and the increase in working from home certainly made a difference to where people chose to buy and rent for quite a long time. However, that trend is slowly starting to reverse as people return to work – not quite to the levels before Covid but certainly approaching them."

Homebuyers and sellers appear to be delaying decisions to move until the Budget, according to new research from Zoopla. Jeremy Leaf told Money Week: “In our offices, we’re hearing time and again how concerns about possible tax increases in the Budget – particularly for high-end homes – are promoting buyers and sellers to ’sit on their hands’, though our existing sales are certainly not collapsing. Demand remains relatively healthy for more affordable homes but is slowing in parts of the market which were already underperforming.”