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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. “Beg you to buy”? Builders get desperate to sell homes offering finance on top of mortgage. Never take it up. Just negotiate down to what you can afford. 

   https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-12/uk-homebuilders-barratt-persimmon-launch-own-help-to-buy-offers

2. Mortgage rates creep back up for first time in 8 months

   https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/mortgage-rates-rise-uk-bank-england-b2844435.html

3. New builds crisis in London: new starts and sales head to zero as lenders get nervous 

   https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/mortgage-rates-rise-uk-bank-england-b2844435.html

4. “Absolutely devastating data” on London housing market.

   https://x.com/rcolvile/status/1978056115486097801?s=46

5. 98% of external wall insulation done due to government fiddling causes problems needed rectification.

   https://www.nao.org.uk/press-releases/weak-controls-and-oversight-blamed-for-faulty-home-installations-under-energy-efficiency-scheme/

6. Economist and Former Head of Institute for Fiscal Studies, Paul Johnson, says gov should not tax landlords more, it’ll raise rents, and stamp duty should be abolished

   https://x.com/moving_charlie/status/1978766496953200816

Charlie's Thought of the Week: The Overvaluing Bogeyman Living in Everyone’s Heads.

Estate agents are their own worst enemies. No one who hasn’t done the job will ever understand the reality. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making any excuses for them, most of them are truly shockingly incompetent.

But not all of them, and that’s important. Because that small minority of genuinely good agents are the only hope for improvement in the housing market.

That’s right, it’s not the government, nor ‘proptech’ providers, nor AI or ‘mandatory qualifications’ that will fix the problem, no.

As my work with Carringtons has proved, houses can be sold swiftly, with no fall throughs, without using proptech, without using AI, Lead Gen or “data”.

The thing everyone fails to understand is that estate agency is not about property, it’s about people, and managing their expectations to try and stop them derailing their own move. It’s a human experience business.

It’s a business that changes lives, for the better when done well, and for the worse when done badly.

But it’s suffering at the hands of a big bad bogeyman that they all acknowledge exists, but never for themselves: The Overvaluing Bogeyman.

“Oh yeah, overvaluing is really bad, agents need to stop it. But we’re not doing it. It’s other agents.”

The psychology is hard to understand, and it’s worst when the bogeyman gets in their heads and convinces them that they’re not doing it. I know this sounds kooky, but this is a super-weird industry, unlike any other, and few people understand it well.

Yet everyone thinks they know what’s wrong, and what needs to happen to fix it.

“Oh yes, mandatory qualifications will make us all look professional and the public will trust us then”. Can you believe the delusion?

I have asked them on LinkedIn how qualifications will end overvaluing (because it won’t) and if you read the comments underneath the post, you’ll see the depth of denial. They won’t even acknowledge that overvaluing is a problem, let alone that qualifications wouldn’t stop it happening.

But it’s not just agents. It’s the public too. Sellers believe the overvaluing, even when they tell themselves “we were being so realistic with our pricing, so we just don’t understand why we’re not getting any viewings”. It’s overpriced. And you don’t realise it becausr the overvaluing bogeyman is in your head, because of decades of news stories about ‘record house prices’.

And even buyers are infected. The bogeyman in their heads tells them that if the asking price is too much, then they can’t afford it. What they should think (if it’s not selling) is that it’s overpriced, and if no one else is buying it, and they like it, then they should view it and make their offer. Most won’t do this, because the overvaluing bogeyman in their heads says they can’t.

All of this is what’s leading to the stasis in the housing market. Overvaluing is a bigger problem than everything else put together. And it’s perpetuated by money lenders, house builders and the government.

But the data shows that it’s costing transactions, moves and killing the economy.

As the new build industry crashes (and make no mistake, it’s in full crisis crash mode) the housing market will continue sliding for as long as this government has it’s fingers in its ears and hands over it’s eyes as it pursues it’s ‘growth’ agenda, at the expense of growth.

They need to scrap stamp duty permanently, and make HMRC house price data transparent. Those two steps, which could be taken overnight, wouldn’t just bring the housing market back to life, it would jolt the whole economy back into growth.

I’m dreading this budget. Because whoever is actually pulling the strings behind the scenes, they seem hell bent on destruction. They can’t possibly be stupid enough to not know the consequences of their policies.

Have a great weekend everyone and remember the 3 Ps:

Be Prepared, be Persistent, and be Patient.

Life is about moving, not money. So move.

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In case you missed anything this week…

Charlie & Stig: The unstoppable collapse of new house building

When your estate agent ties you to a contract and fails

Most viewed post this week on X:

Most viewed video this week on TikTok:

@movinghomewithcharlie

How not to renegotiate a house purchase

That’s all for this week!

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

Charlie