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Welcome to your weekly briefing on important things affecting the housing market.

As a subscriber, the facts hit your inbox first. BUT it is always worth tuning into the live stream, as there may be a couple of last-minute additions. Find the live stream here:

Remember: If you’ve recently rented, bought or sold a home, please report your price to the BestAgent Public House Price Index.

This week’s top 5 housing market facts:

1. Zoopla House Price index shows sliced and diced market with a North South divide both geographically and numerically (price band). https://assets.ctfassets.net/02vwvgr6spsr/39JKPhyy2adj2lIL4Rvozn/4dbcbcd89fcd9cf0eb96bfab59851dee/UK_House_Price_Index_Sep25_ZP.pdf

2. IoD - business confidence at new record low. Remind me why people think waiting to sell is a good idea?  https://www.iod.com/news/uk-economy/iod-press-release-business-confidence-falls-to-new-record-low

3. FT warns the government - careful what you do with property taxes. It could take a generation to unpick the mess we’re in.  https://www.ft.com/content/e587fec2-3a3a-4d2b-8dc8-2cd765ec28ce

4. Nationwide Gaslights Shamelessly on ‘economic recovery’ - what?? https://www.nationwide.co.uk/media/hpi/reports/annual-house-price-growth-steady-in-september-1

5. UK PMI Business Growth index now negative for 12 months straight https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/manufacturing-pmi

6. HMRC Transaction August Transaction Volumes show slight 1% contraction over 2024 (completion prices still withheld) https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/monthly-property-transactions-completed-in-the-uk-with-value-40000-or-above/uk-monthly-property-transactions-commentary--2

Charlie's Thought of the Week: Keep Moving. Why do they hide the truth? (and what about the budget?)

Sometimes, in the face of relentless public push back from the “everything’s fine Charlie, don’t be a doom monger” brigade of dipsticks, I question myself.

What if I am just seeing things from a uniquely negative perspective?

Have I got tunnel vision? Is everything actually fine, after all?

Transaction volumes seem stable, new mortgage approvals are ok, perhaps everything is fine, and I’ve lost my way.

This week has restored my faith in my ability to see objectively what’s really happening.

Yes, first time buyer purchases remain healthy in many areas, especially in the north of England. Great, I’m all for more people owning homes if that’s what they want.

Yes, 3 bed semis are generally in higher demand than most other property types, because they’re getting competing demand from FTB’s, upsizers AND downsizers. To all those buyers fighting over these (and bungalows) the ‘housing market’, as it’s unhelpfully labelled, must seem as though it’s thriving.

And these are areas of the market where there is significant volume, too, further adding to the sense of normality, and that everything really is ok.

But, and I must be very careful not to betray anyone’s confidence here, this week I have had an extraordinary number of senior, influential people related to the housing sector, divulging first hand stories of abject disaster, either already happening, or speeding their way.

Is it the “controlled demolition” some speak of? Well if it is, it’s remarkably effective.

I don’t think it is though. I think it is the inevitable catching up with the can that we’ve been kicking down the road since 2008.

We are not in a conventional ‘house price crash’ scenario, no. But we are in what feels like the reckoning we’ve been pushing back for years, which is finally coming home to roost.

New housebuilding in London has already stopped, almost completely. This is not getting the headlines it should. It’s unprecedented.

Perhaps it’s just a blip and it will resume soon? No. The fundamental economics of housebuilding have flipped, and it simply is no longer viable in most cases.

There are 280,000 homes with permission to build granted, in London alone, that are not being built, because the market for new homes in London has completely died.

It’s not just London. The financials of housebuilding are very long term, 10-15 years. The profits being seen today are as a result of the last 10 years. But actually, the viability of these firms is now in serious doubt.

At the very top end, the property market is dead, as Kirstie Allsopp said in the telegraph last week.

The market above £500,000 is slowing, and above £1m, for all but the most realistic sellers, there’s no prospect of selling any time soon, and this will have a trickle-down stagnation effect.

Much of this slowdown is of course related to people waiting for the outcome of the budget, and that’s another whole area of discussion. The most likely property tax policies we can expect are contained in this document but it’s anyone’s guess what’s really going to happen.

The lateness of the budget on 26 November also won’t leave much time before Christmas for people to digest the announcements and work out what it means for their move.

Perhaps they’ll pull a rabbit out of the hat and breathe life back into the flagging market, we can only hope.

However, this government hasn’t managed to get a single thing right yet, so my optimism is minimal.

I fear the ill advised policies will cause chaos and confusion, and impact the property chains currently in progress, and trigger a weird reset, the dust from which may take some time to settle.

So, as I often say that it’s about the move, not the money, I think that the best thing anyone who needs and wants to move now can do is, keep moving. I suspect moving home will become harder, not easier, after the budget, for some time.

Final thought: It’s such a shame that people working in large organisations who know the truth of what is happening, only feel able to tell me off the record. If life has taught me one thing, its that the sooner you acknowledge and face up to challenges, the sooner you’ll overcome them.

We are in an industry full of companies publicly in denial of what’s happening, when privately they all know we’re in big trouble. If only they’d tell the truth.

As Stiggy so eloquently put it at the end of this short video, ‘underneath, it’s those bastards with the money.”

In case you missed anything this week…

“We’ve lowered to 2005 asking price, still no viewings”

Stig and Charlie: The only way housing will ever be affordable

Live: Richard Donnell and Charlie on the pre-budget housing market and the latest Zoopla Index

Most viewed post this week on X:

Most viewed video this week on TikTok:

@movinghomewithcharlie

Will The Budget Cause House Prices To Drop?

That’s all for this week!

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Have a great weekend, lots of love and luck to you all.

Charlie