DATA: ONS estimated monthly GDP rose 1.0% in year to Feb 2026
They report “The largest contribution to the three-month on three-month growth came from an increase of 0.5% in services output”.
DATA: Nationwide reported UK house prices rose 2.2% in year to Mar 2026
This was higher than the 1.0% reported for the previous month. They also report “Northern Ireland [was the] best performing area in Q1 2026, with prices up 9.5% year-on-year” while “Outer South East [was the] weakest performing region, with prices down 0.7% compared with Q1 2025”.
DATA: Halifax reported UK house prices rose 0.8% in the year to Mar 2026
This was lower than the revised 1.2% rise reported for the previous month. They report (PDF) “The recent slowdown in the housing market reflects the wide uncertainty regarding the conflict in the Middle East”.
DATA(PDF): Zoopla reported UK house prices rose 1.3% in year to Feb 2026
They report “Sales agreed holding steady in March, supported by committed movers with mortgages agreed and pressing on with sales” but “Buyer demand weakens in March, now 13% below last year, as more early-stage movers adopt a ‘wait and see’ approach”.
DATA: BoE published quoted mortgage rate data for Mar 2026
They report the average rate for a two-year fixed-rate mortgage at 75% loan-to-value rose sharply from 3.97% in Feb to 4.45%.
DATA: BoE published effective mortgage rate data for Feb 2026
They report the average rate on new advances (both purchase and remortgage increased slightly, from 4.10% the previous month to 4.11%. The average rate on outstanding balances increased from 3.91% to 3.95%.
DATA: BoE published Credit Conditions Survey for Q1 2026
They report “the availability of secured credit to households increased in the three months to end-February 2026 (Q1)” and “was expected to increase over the next three months to end-May 2026 (Q2)”. They also report “demand for secured lending for house purchase was unchanged in Q1, and was expected to increase in Q2”.
DATA: BoE reported 63,584 mortgage approvals for purchase in Feb 2026
The seasonally adjusted number of mortgage approvals for house purchase was 3.9% higher than the previous month but 3.9% lower than the same month last year. The number of approvals for remortgage was 28% higher than last year.
DATA: HMRC reported 102,410 residential transactions in Feb 2026
The seasonally adjusted number was 5.6% higher than the previous month but 5.6% below the same month last year (which was affected by the stamp duty holiday).
DATA: ONS published construction output data for Feb 2026
They report “Total construction output is estimated to have fallen by 2.0% in the three months to February 2026; this is the fifth consecutive fall in the three-monthly series”.
DATA: Scottish Gov published housebuilding data for 2025
They report “There were 17,336 new homes built and 14,999 new builds started” during the year, with a 6% fall in starts and 13% fall in completions compared to 2024. Given issues with housebuilding data in England and Wales, it is quite possible that these figures undercount actual housebuilding activity.
DATA: UKF published buy-to-let mortgage data for Q4 2025
They report “In Q4 2025 there were 59,489 new buy-to-let loans advanced in the UK, worth £11.2 billion. This was up quite significantly compared with the same quarter in the previous year, 18.2 per cent by number (21.3 per cent by value), with the growth largely concentrated in remortgage activity.”
DATA: Scottish Gov published Landlord Register data for Feb 2026
The data shows there were 5,450 fewer registered landlords than the same month last year but the number of registered properties increased by 88 over the same period.
DATA: MHCLG published statutory homelessness ad hoc analysis
The release includes several different tables.
DATA: ONS published Families and households in the UK for 2025
They report there were 29.0m households in the UK in 2025.
DATA: Financial Market Expectations For BoE’s Bank Rate
The chart provides a summary for the expected future level of Bank Rate based on daily data. The One Year figure was 4.14% on the 15th Apr compared to 4.08% on the 8th Apr.
DATA: New Build Energy Performance Certificates, England
This chart provides a summary of the number of EPCs on new build properties, a useful leading indicator for net additions. The 52-week rolling total was 208,595 for the week commencing 6th Apr, lower than the 209,404 total for the previous week.
POLICY: Gov launched £165m Growth and Housing Accelerator Fund
It “will target sites where progress has stalled due to funding constraints, delivering the transport improvements and links needed to get building started”.
POLICY: Gov launched National Housing Bank and NHDF
The National Housing Bank will “invest up to £16 billion through debt, equity, and guarantee products” for housing delivery. The National Housing Delivery Fund provides “£5 billion of capital grant funding for infrastructure and land from 2026 to 2030” to provide loans, equity and guarantees via the Housing Bank and grant funding to increase “housing supply on otherwise unviable large and complex sites, and supporting land assembly, remediation and up-front infrastructure delivery on projects such as utilities and schools”.
POLICY: MHCLG announced further housing polices
They include more time and support for vulnerable people paying council tax bills, funding for local authorities to enforce the Renters’ Rights Act, and funding for the “installation of common fire alarms in buildings waiting for remediation works to be completed”.
POLICY: VOA is now part of HMRC
REPORT: BoE published Financial Policy Committee Record
They report “Based on current OIS rates, around 5.2 million (58%) mortgagors could face increases in mortgage repayments by 2028 Q4” but “typical increases in mortgage payments would remain modest in comparison to those experienced in recent years, as most mortgagors were already on higher rates”.
REPORT(PDF): RICS published residential market survey for Mar 2026
They report “Rising borrowing costs knock buyer demand and sales volumes” and “Aggregate house prices seen softening, with near-term expectations pointing to further modest declines in the months ahead”. They also report the “Twelve-month outlook for activity and prices turns from positive to broadly flat”.
REPORT: UKF on “What global tensions could mean for your mortgage”
They report “In a year where 1.8 million fixed rate mortgages are set to come to the end of their deal period”, they “that the vast majority of customers will still have a good degree of wiggle room after they refinance” but “the scale of the challenge is very different, depending on when customers took out their previous loan, with those who last borrowed in 2021 facing by far the greatest payment shock”.
REPORT: MHCLG published English Housing Survey market value survey
They report “The mean market value of a dwelling on 1st July 2024 was £348,000 and the median market value was £275,000”.
REPORT: RF on the distributional impact of mortgage lending rules
They “find that a blanket loosening of regulation risks being counterproductive, as research shows expanding mortgage credit in a context of inelastic housing supply mainly raises prices rather than homeownership” and suggest “A Starter Deposit equity loan scheme could provide first-time buyers with a 5 per cent deposit on a starter home”.
REPORT: IFS reported on who benefits from Help to Buy
They “find that affordability gains from the schemes were concentrated among higher-income individuals, and that the mortgage guarantee scheme had limited effect on affordability for most non-homeowners”.
REPORT: JRF reported on getting homes built
They “argue that targeted measures to increase the financial capacity of housing associations and councils, thereby enabling them to build a greater number of new homes, should be a key plank of a plan to get housebuilding going again”.
REPORT: JRF reported on affordability for private renters
They “look at different dimensions of rent-affordability pressure faced by tenants in the private rented sector”.
REPORT: Shelter on the “Roadmap to the future of council homes”
Their “briefing sets out 5 key changes the government must make to unleash a council housing revolution, knocking down the barriers to councils building social rent homes at scale once again”.
REPORT(PDF): PFC on delivering social and affordable housing at scale
The Purposeful Finance Commission report on a “widening viability gap in the social and affordable housing sector” and “sets out practical recommendations that could meaningfully boost the supply of good quality social and affordable homes”.
REPORT: CaCHE reported on land value capture
“The report argues that land value capture manages and holds together the structural flaws of the existing land, housing and development settlement without resolving them. Rather, it helps to prevent the worst excesses of injustice and inefficiency that would pertain if the distribution of development value was entirely unregulated, while helping to secure the ongoing legitimacy of a system that has failed to produce politically, socially, environmentally or economically acceptable outcomes.”
REPORT: ASI reported on alternatives to S106
Their report “argues that Section 106 (S106) obligations are constraining housing supply rather than supporting it” and “proposes abolishing the housing component of S106, replacing it with a flat grant model via Homes England”.
REPORT(PDF): Hometrack reported on new build sales rates
They report “The top performing postcode areas in 2025 were defined by three criteria: inventory discipline (supply less than 18% above 5-year average), aspirational positioning (pricing in the 80th percentile of the resale market to leverage the new build premium), and attainable entry points (sub £380,000 pricing where more than 15% of local buyers are priced in with a 20% deposit and a 4.5 LTI).
REPORT(PDF): Molior on London residential development in Q1 2026
They report “Sales In Q1 2026 Are Up 30% But Still Awful” and mostly to companies. They also report “The Sold v Unsold Numbers Are Surprisingly Good” but “Many Projects Complete Soon, This Means Scarcity Is Imminent”.
REPORT: Labour Together on street votes
They suggest “Even if they deliver very little, the cost of allowing street votes is minimal because no homes would be built without local support”.
OTHER NEWS
TwentyCi published their property and homemover report for Q1 2026, Propertymark published their housing insight report for Feb 2026, and Moneyfacts reported “the average shelf-life of a mortgage has fallen to a record-low, product choice has shrunk to a two-year low and fixed mortgage rates rose by notable margins”.
CORPORATE: Berkeley published Strategy and Trading Update
They report “In this environment, Berkeley does not believe it can make its required rate of return on investment in new land acquisitions” and “Construction phasing will continue to be matched to market demand and the pace of Building Safety Regulator approvals”.
CORPORATE: Unite Students published Trading Update
They report “74% of beds reserved for 2026/27 sales cycle (2025/26: 76%)” and “Guidance reiterated for occupancy and rental growth at lower end of 93-96% and 2-3% ranges for 2026/27 academic year”.
CORPORATE: Barratt Redrow published Third Quarter Trading Update
They report “Net private reservation rate, excluding private rental sector (‘PRS’) and other multi-unit sales (‘MUS’) reservations, 3.2% higher at 0.64 compared to 0.62 in the comparable period” and “Net private reservation rate including PRS and other MUS reservations at 0.67, 6.3% higher compared to 0.63, reflecting additional PRS and MUS activity during this period”.
CORPORATE: Winkworth published Final Results
They report “After a steady start to the year, early 2026 trading across our network has been resilient, with sales applicant registrations and agreed sales broadly in line with recent years”.