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    By Rhys Hedges · Published 10 November 2026

    House Price Forecast 2026 UK: What the Experts Now Expect

    Brick semi-detached homes on a UK street

    UK house prices are now expected to finish 2026 roughly flat to slightly higher, not the 2% to 4% rise most forecasters pencilled in last winter. Higher mortgage rates through the year have slowed sales more than they have cut prices, and the forecasts have drifted down accordingly. The range now runs from a 2% fall (Savills) to a modest rise of around 1.5% (Capital Economics), with London and the South East the weakest areas.

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    Key points

    • Forecasts for 2026 have been cut. Savills now expects a 2% fall, Connells expects a 1.0% rise for Great Britain, and Capital Economics expects prices around 1.5% higher in Q4 than a year earlier.
    • Actual prices have been soft: Nationwide put annual growth at 0.5% in October 2026, the slowest since January 2024.
    • Regions differ widely. London and the South East are weakest, while the North East, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are holding up better.
    • Forecasts are averages. The price of the home you want depends on sold prices on its own road, so use the forecast as background and local evidence for your offer.

    Table of Contents

    What did forecasters expect for 2026, and what has changed?

    The year began with cautious optimism. Nationwide’s outlook for 2026 expected annual UK house price growth to stay broadly in the 2% to 4% range. Its reasoning was that incomes would grow faster than prices and interest rates would ease a little, so affordability would improve gradually. Nationwide also expected the property tax changes in the Budget to have little significant effect on the market.

    The mid-year picture was less comfortable. In June, Savills revised its mainstream forecast to a 2% fall for 2026. It said the conflict in Iran and the resulting rise in mortgage rates had fundamentally changed the outlook for the next 12 months. Savills had previously been forecasting growth, so the revision is a swing, not a tweak.

    By November, the lender and agency forecasts had settled into a narrower, more cautious band. Here is where the main published forecasts sit.

    Forecaster 2026 view Date and notes
    Nationwide Growth of 2% to 4% Published at the start of 2026, before mortgage rates rose
    Savills Fall of 2% June 2026 revision, with the biggest falls in London and the South East
    Connells Group Rise of 1.0% for Great Britain 2 November 2026, with London down 1.0%
    Capital Economics Around 1.5% higher in Q4 2026 than a year earlier 21 July 2026, dependent on Bank Rate and mortgage rates falling
    Office for Budget Responsibility Average growth of just over 2.5% over its forecast period March 2026, broadly in line with income growth

    The figures are not directly comparable. Some measure the average over the calendar year, some compare Q4 with Q4, and some cover Great Britain only. What matters is the direction: the early-2026 forecasts were too optimistic, and the later ones are close to flat.

    What are house prices actually doing right now?

    A forecast is only useful next to the latest figures. Nationwide’s October 2026 index showed UK annual house price growth at 0.5%, the slowest pace since January 2024, with prices unchanged month on month. That followed 0.8% in September, down from 1.6% in August.

    Monthly UK house price growth slowed through 2026

    The official measure points the same way. According to the House of Commons Library’s summary of the UK House Price Index, prices rose 0.9% between August 2025 and August 2026. The North East and Wales recorded the fastest growth, while prices fell in London and the South East.

    So on the evidence to date, 2026 is shaping up as a year of stagnation for the average home, not a crash and not a recovery. Prices at national level are essentially flat, and the real story is in how few people have been able to move.

    Why have forecasts been cut during 2026?

    Three things explain most of the revisions.

    1. Mortgage rates rose more than expected. Connells Group noted that higher-than-expected mortgage rates delayed the recovery in home moves, with an estimated 100,000 fewer transactions than anticipated at the start of the year.
    2. The adjustment has come through volumes first. Connells says the impact has been felt more in fewer sales than in widespread price falls, and that some of the adjustment to higher borrowing costs has already happened through inflation. In plain terms, sellers have often held their price and waited, so fewer deals have completed.
    3. Geopolitical risk. Savills says the main risk to its outlook is a protracted conflict in the Middle East, which would push inflation and borrowing costs higher and give forecasts more of a V-shape: a weaker patch followed by a recovery.

    Capital Economics takes a more benign view, expecting gradual rises for the rest of 2026, but it attaches a condition: its forecast depends on Bank Rate and mortgage rates falling. If rates stay where they are, that forecast is the one most at risk.

    How do forecasts differ between London and the rest of the UK?

    The national average hides a wide spread. The strongest evidence is consistent across sources:

    • London and the South East are the weakest. Savills expects the most significant falls there, and Connells forecasts London prices to fall 1.0% in 2026 before rising 2.0% in 2027.
    • The North East, Wales and Scotland are stronger. The UK HPI shows the North East and Wales growing fastest over the year to August, and Connells forecasts the North East and Scotland rising 4.0% in 2028.
    • Northern Ireland has been the best performing region in Nationwide’s index, with prices up 5.9% year on year in Q3 2026, while East Anglia was weakest with a 0.7% annual decline.

    The pattern reflects affordability. Where prices are already high relative to incomes, higher mortgage rates bite hardest. Where homes are cheaper relative to local earnings, there is more room for prices to hold.

    Zoopla’s rankings for 2026 tell a similar story. Its list of the markets with the strongest prospects was led by Motherwell, followed by Glasgow, Paisley, Falkirk, Kirkcaldy, Edinburgh, Kilmarnock, Perth and Inverness, with Wigan the only non-Scottish town in the top ten. Zoopla’s Richard Donnell said that local conditions matter more than ever in 2026, and that basing decisions on local values, affordability, demand and selling times helps buyers and sellers move with more confidence.

    How is a house price forecast actually calculated?

    Forecasts look authoritative, but they are model outputs built on assumptions. The Office for Budget Responsibility publishes the clearest account of its method. According to its housing market page, the forecast has three stages:

    1. A short-term forecast based on leading indicators, including RICS and GfK survey data and Bank of England mortgage lending data.
    2. A medium-term path informed by models, including an updated version of the house price model in OBR Working Paper No. 6.
    3. The addition of the effects of any new government policies judged likely to affect prices.

    The OBR’s model finds that real income growth has the greatest influence on real house prices, because it is the main driver of housing demand while supply rises relatively slowly. It also takes account of demographics, mortgage rates and credit conditions from the wider economic forecast. The OBR also expects the planning reforms announced in December 2024 to add 0.5% to the housing stock and reduce the average house price by around 0.8% by 2029.

    This explains why forecasters disagree. They make different assumptions about interest rates, incomes and supply, and a change in any one input moves the answer. A forecast made in January, before a rate shock, will look very different from one made in June.

    What does this mean if you are buying in 2026?

    For most buyers, the useful conclusion is not a number. It is that conditions favour you more than they have for some time. Fewer completed sales and flat prices mean sellers have less leverage, particularly in London and the South East.

    That said, a national forecast cannot tell you whether a specific asking price is fair. A flat market still contains overpriced listings and good-value ones. Here is how an experienced agent would approach it:

    1. Check what has actually sold. Look at HM Land Registry sold prices for the same road and similar property types over the last 12 to 24 months, and compare them with the asking price.
    2. Compare asking and sold prices in your area. Our local pieces, such as Bristol asking price versus sold price and Brighton asking price versus sold price, show the kind of gap you can look for.
    3. Check how long it has been on the market. A listing that has been up for months, and has had a price reduction, gives you more room to negotiate.
    4. Work out your own offer. Our step-by-step guide to calculating an offer on a house walks through the process.
    5. Test the mortgage, not just the price. Rates have affected the market more than prices this year, so run the numbers with our mortgage calculator and read how lenders stress test affordability.

    If you want the same-road comparison done for you, a full buyer report pulls recent local sales, area data and a suggested offer range into one place for £19.99. It is a data-led guide to what to offer, not a RICS valuation, survey or financial advice.

    Should you wait for prices to fall before buying?

    The forecasts do not give a firm reason to wait. They range from a small fall to a small rise, and the spread between them is smaller than the difference you can find between two similar homes on the same street. Timing the market on a 1% or 2% swing is hard even for professionals.

    What tends to matter more:

    • Your mortgage rate and term. A change in rate of half a percentage point can move your monthly payment by more than a 2% change in price.
    • How long you plan to stay. If you expect to hold for five years or more, the short-term direction matters less than buying a home you can afford comfortably.
    • Your local market. A buyer in Glasgow and a buyer in Kent are in different markets this year.
    • Your deposit and costs. Stamp duty, conveyancing and moving costs apply whatever prices do, so budget for them separately.

    If you are buying in the next few months, a sensible stance is to negotiate on evidence, keep your finances flexible and avoid stretching to the top of your budget in the hope that prices will rise.

    What does it mean if you are selling, investing or letting?

    Sellers in London and the South East face the toughest conditions. With fewer buyers able to complete, pricing realistically at the outset usually works better than starting high and reducing later. Buyers see the listing history on portals, and a reduction signals that the first price was too ambitious.

    Investors should look at yield and local demand before national headlines. A region with modest price growth but steady rents can produce a stronger return than a slower-moving, expensive area. Our free property calculators include a yield calculator for a first check, and our guide to property market trends explains which indicators to watch.

    Estate and letting agents are in a market where buyers arrive better informed and push harder on price. Handing them local evidence on schools, broadband, bills and council tax helps conversations stay on the property instead of on the headlines.

    Our view: why local evidence beats national forecasts

    We read the same forecasts you do, and our conclusion is that they are best used as context, not as a prediction of what any one home will sell for. A range from a 2% fall to a 1.5% rise is narrow compared with the gap between a well-priced and an overpriced house on the same road.

    That is why we built Offer Smart around the address, not the average. Enter an address or paste a Rightmove or OnTheMarket link, and our reports compare recent local sales, including those on the same road, alongside area data such as crime and flood risk, schools and running costs. We designed this to give buyers negotiation leverage grounded in comparable evidence.

    We would rather a buyer make one well-supported offer than three guesses. Forecasts will keep changing as rates move. The sold prices on your street will not.

    Rhys Hedges

    Where can you check the evidence before making an offer?

    If you are comparing several homes, our unlimited homebuyer membership costs £39.99 per month and lets you run as many reports as you need while you search. For a single property, the one-off report is £19.99. Each report covers comparable sales, an offer guide, area and school data, and estimated running costs.

    Offer Smart

    You can see exactly what a report contains in our example buyer report before you decide. Estate and letting agents can also look at the branded guides for agents, which start at £49.99 per month per branch.

    FAQ

    Will UK house prices go up in 2026?

    On current evidence, only slightly, if at all. Forecasts now range from a 2% fall (Savills) to rises of 1.0% (Connells) and around 1.5% by Q4 (Capital Economics), while Nationwide measured annual growth at 0.5% in October. London and the South East are weaker than the national figure.

    Will house prices crash in 2026?

    None of the forecasts cited here predicts a crash. The largest fall forecast is 2%, and Connells says the effect of higher borrowing costs has been felt more in fewer sales than in widespread price drops. Savills names a prolonged Middle East conflict pushing up inflation and borrowing costs as the main risk to its outlook.

    Why do house price forecasts disagree?

    Forecasters use different assumptions about interest rates, incomes, supply and policy, and they publish at different times. The OBR, for example, builds its forecast from survey and mortgage lending data, then adds a model driven mainly by real income growth. A change in the interest-rate assumption alone can shift the result noticeably.

    Is 2026 a good time to buy a house in the UK?

    That depends on your finances and where you are buying. Flat prices and fewer completed sales give buyers more negotiating room, especially in London and the South East, but mortgage rates are the bigger factor in what you can afford. Check sold prices on the road and run your mortgage figures before you offer.

    Sources

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