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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. Renter’s Rights Bill would see 20% of all private rented properties wiped off the market for not meeting decent homes standard.

   A two-edged sword:

   1. It would force those properties to be sold (but increase homelessness in the process)

   2. It would create significant upward pressure on rents.

   https://propertyindustryeye.com/over-a-million-prs-homes-in-england-currently-fail-decent-homes-standard/

2. Tax hikes slam brakes on wage growth https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-10/reeves-tax-hike-tightens-grip-on-uk-jobs-market-rec-poll-finds

3. Average rents fall for the first time in 15 years.   https://x.com/moving_charlie/status/1954855895956955418

   Greater London continued to record the steepest declines, with rents falling by 3 per cent year-on-year in July — its seventh consecutive monthly decline and the biggest annual drop since May 2021

   https://www.ftadviser.com/buy-to-let/2025/8/11/average-rent-falls-for-first-time-since-2020/

4. Another 34,000 job losses announced in one month. https://x.com/moving_charlie/status/1955158799246819387?s=46

5. RICS shows worries for housing market in August survey

   https://www.rics.org/content/dam/ricsglobal/documents/market-surveys/uk-residential-market-survey/WEB_July_2025_RICS_UK_Residential_Market_Survey_tp.pdf

Charlie's Thought of the Week:

Missed opportunities to get the home you wanted.

Buying a home is already hard enough. But it never ceases to amaze me how many miss out on a home because they simply didn’t make an offer.

And in this buyers market, it’s truer than ever. Opportunities to secure homes beyond your expectations are higher now than any time in the last 20 years.

But too often I hear:

1. “Oh, we really liked it, but it was way outside our price range”. Doesn’t matter, make your offer.

2. “We didn’t want to get into a bidding war.” You don’t have to. Just make your offer.

3. “The agent said our offer wouldn’t be accepted unless it was asking price….”. Ignore the agents. Most of them can’t be trusted but you can never tell which, so just, you guessed it, make your offer.

4. “We didn’t want to offend the seller.” Really?? A stranger’s feelings are more important to you than securing your home? Just make the offer!

Provided you are serious about moving and not wasting people’s time, always, always, ALWAYS make your offer.

You might hear nothing back for 6 weeks. Then you get a call. “Is the offer still on the table?”

You might be told that your offer was insulting and immediately rejected. Then you get a call back a few weeks later asking if you’re still interested.

You might be told another offer has been accepted. But guess what, so many offers fall through. If you’ve made an offer, you’ll be their first call when it does fall through.

Write it down, 100 times, “if I see a home I like, always make an offer, even if it’s nowhere near asking price.”

The only way to guarantee your offer won’t be accepted, is to not make it in the first place.

The number of properties sitting unsold on the market because interested buyers were put off either by a stupid agent, or their own incorrect assumptions, cannot be known, but would be surprising. Half of agents are SO BAD, they literally manipulate themselves out of sales. It’s incredible.

“But Charlie, isn’t there a risk that agents get annoyed with your low offers and stop taking them seriously?” It doesn’t matter. If yours is the only offer on a future property, they will be happy to sell to you.

Just make sure that your offer is serious, well put together, and easy for the agent to recommend to the seller, even if it’s for less than they want.

Have all your ducks in a row. Show you can move quickly, and mean it.

If you haven’t used them, then please use my free offer email templates.

But always, always make your offer. Just don’t offer more (or less!) than your maximum comfortable price.

Mortgaged Offer email template https://mhwc.co.uk/suggested-email-template-for-first-time-buyers-making-an-offer-with-a-mortgage/

Cash Offer email template https://mhwc.co.uk/email-templates/suggested-email-offer-template-for-cash-buyers/

In case you missed anything this week…

Why Gary Stevenson is dangerously wrong about wealth taxes.

The house buying landscape has changed indefinitely.

Most viewed post this week on X:

Most viewed video this week on TikTok:

@movinghomewithcharlie

Home Buying: Don't Overpay! Avoid The Traps!

One more thing…

I went on an industry podcast to argue about house prices. This is what I’m up against when trying to bring price transparency to agents!

That’s all for this week!

Thank you so much for subscribing. Please do give me any feedback you have by replying to this email.

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

Charlie