– At the top end of the market sales agreed between two-to-five million and over five million are both up against Q1 last year, 3% and 5% respectively. In the one-to-two million bracket agreed sales are down 6% versus Q1 2025, but up 14% against Q4. (Strutt & Parker)
– The London Plan sets out a target of 88,000 new homes annually to meet demand, but construction starts fell to 6,325 homes in the year to March.
– The active demand for office space in Central London reached a new record high of 14.6m sq ft, 57% above the 10-year average. (Savills)
– 67.7% more properties were withdrawn in the spring compared to last year and +45.3% compared to the 2017-19 average
– Of all the properties sold so far in 2026, 54.0% did so after seeing at least one asking price reduction. The highest previous figure for a full calendar year on this metric is 52.0%, recorded in 2018. (Lonres)
– £5m+ transaction volumes in April were 6.3% lower than the same month last year but 57.9% higher than the 2017–2019 April average. (Lonres)
What is happening in PCL?
Here is a snapshot of the last 30 days through May (Source: Lonres)
Last 30 Days Same 30 days last year Change Since Last Year
Price Reductions 1,719 1,101 56%
Price Increases 58 37 57%
Under Offers 1,134 686 65%
Fall Throughs 249 167 49%
Sold 543 446 22%
Houses 181 (33%) 126 (28%) 44%
Flats 362 (67%) 320 (72%) 13%
Avg Days on Market 261 219 19%
Withdrawn 728 600 21%
Compared to a year ago there are 11% more properties for sale.
What may standout is that there were 22% more sales in the last 30 days and 65% more properties going under offer than in the same period last year. The sales figure is slightly misleading as last year’s numbers were skewed by people bringing forward their purchases due to tax changes in April 2025 (just another example of why comparing small data sets is very misleading).
Meanwhile, the under-offer figures show that there is a fair amount of demand although the large number of fall-throughs shows how nervous people are. This figure has also not been helped by the astonishingly slow pace of the legal process. This is partly caused by managing agents who seem to think that glacial drift is the perfect pace at which to work.
Unfortunately, many solicitors are also to blame. We are currently buying an apartment for a client where the seller’s solicitor announced to ours that he wasn’t sure how to attach documents to an email, so to bear with him… and, no, I am not joking.
Admittedly, this is an extreme case, but I cannot stress enough how important it is that you have a good team acting for you including a solicitor who is not just technically adept but is also able to find solutions and manage the seller’s solicitor (and, on occasion, even do their work for them!). In addition, your solicitor should also be willing to call their counterparts rather than complaining about not receiving a response to an email.
If you would like to know more about how to put together your “buyer’s team”, simply let me know by emailing jeremy@mercuryhomesearch.com or calling 02034578855 (+442034578855 from outside the UK).
