DATA: ONS reported Consumer Prices Index rose 3.5% in year to Apr 2025
This was higher than the 2.6% reported for the previous month and “The largest upward contributions to the monthly change in both CPIH and CPI annual rates came from housing and household services, transport, and recreation and culture”.
DATA: ONS published Household Cost Indices for Q1 2025
They report “private renter households had the highest annual inflation rate of 3.6% in March 2025, reflecting rising private rental payments; this was followed by social and other renter households, which had a 3.0% inflation rate in the year to March 2025” and “Outright owner occupiers experienced the lowest annual inflation rate of all tenure types, at 1.8% in the year to March 2025; mortgagor households had the next lowest (2.8%)”.
DATA: Rightmove reported asking prices rose 1.2% in year to May 2025
They report the monthly rise was “the lowest at this time of year since 2016, as the decade-high number of homes for sale limits price growth”. They also report “the number of sales being agreed in the last month is 5% higher than at this time last year” and “The number of new properties coming onto the market for sale is now 14% ahead of this time last year”.
DATA: ONS/HMLR reported UK house prices rose 6.4% in year to Mar 2025
They report the annual change ranged from 14.3% in the North East to 0.8% in London. However, these figures appear to be affected by the end of the SDLT holiday and are more volatile than usual. It is also likely that next month’s figures over-correct for this effect.
DATA(PDF): Zoopla reported UK house prices rose 1.6% in year to Apr 2025
They report the “Highest level of sales agreed in May for 4 years” thanks to a rebound in sales after Easter. They also report “13% more homes for sale than last year”.
DATA: ONS reported UK private rents rose 7.4% in year to Apr 2025
This was slightly lower than the 7.7% the previous month and, across England, “private rents annual inflation was highest in the North East (9.4%) and lowest in Yorkshire and The Humber (4.0%)”.
DATA: ONS reported £1.486bn in SDLT receipts in Apr 2025
The total value of Stamp Duty Land Tax receipts (covering both residential and commercial) was 0.8% lower than the previous month and 30.8% higher than the same month last year.
DATA: HMRC reported 64,680 residential transactions in Apr 2025
The estimate was 64% lower than the previous month and 28% lower than the same month last year as it was the first month following the end of the SDLT holiday and transactions had been brought forward into March to avoid the increased stamp duty payable.
DATA: ONS published long-term international migration data for 2024
They report “The number of people immigrating minus the number of people emigrating is provisionally estimated to be 431,000 in year ending (YE) December 2024, compared with 860,000 a year earlier”.
DATA: ONS published online short-term lets data for 2024
They report “From January to December 2024, there were 90.1 million guest nights spent in short-term lets in the UK” and “guest nights were concentrated in relatively few local authorities; about a quarter (26%) of all UK guest nights were in 10 local authorities”.
DATA: HMT published Mortgage Guarantee Scheme statistics for Q4 2024
They report “There were 53,261 mortgage completions from scheme launch on 19 April 2021 to the end of December 2024, which represents 1.4% of all residential mortgage completions in the UK”.
DATA: MHCLG published dwelling stock estimates for England, Mar 2025
See Chart of the Week for more detail.
DATA: MHCLG published leasehold dwelling estimates for 2023/24
They report “In 2023-24, there were an estimated 4.83 million leasehold dwellings in England. This equates to 19% of the English housing stock. Of these, 2.59 million dwellings (54%) were in the owner occupied sector and 1.96 million (41%) were privately owned and let in the private rented sector. The remaining 277,000 (6%) were dwellings owned by social landlords and let in the social rented sector”.
DATA(PDF): IMLA published Intermediary Market Tracker for Q1 2025
The survey of mortgage market activity reports “The average number of DIPs in the last 3 months increases to 33” and the “Conversion from DIP to completion sees a good improvement of +7%, now at 42%”. DIP = decision in principle.
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 3.75% on the 28th May compared to 3.74% on the 21st May.
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 208,279 for the week commencing 19th May, slightly down from 208,441 the previous week.
POLICY: MHCLG announced plans to speed up build out
They announced “New housebuilding timeframes must be set before planning permission is granted” and “Developers who repeatedly fail to build out or use planning permissions to trade land speculatively could face new ‘Delayed Homes Penalty’ or be locked out of future permissions by councils”. More detail on these along with mixed tenure thresholds, CPOs, and the Delayed Homes Penalty can be found in the Working Paper.
POLICY: MHCLG announced plans to support SME housebuilders
They announced “Faster decisions for small sites”, “A new ‘medium site’ category”, “More land and financing options for SMEs”, and “A new pilot to unlock small sites for SMEs”. More detail is in the Working Paper. MHCLG also launched a technical consultation on the reform of planning committees.
REPORT: MHCLG published EHS local authority housing stock conditions
The release “provides sub-regional estimates of housing stock condition”.
REPORT: Centre for Cities reported on Build to Rent
They report “Although BtR accounts for a small share of England’s total housing stock, it is making a significant contribution to housing delivery in urban areas. It could serve as a helpful tool in these places where private sector has long struggled to build, and help the Government meet its targets”.
REPORT: NEF reported on the Brownfield Housing Fund in the North East
They report “While brownfield developments offer a solution to some challenges, this report reveals significant issues with the financing and delivery of housing on such sites. These include high remediation costs coupled with low land values, which result in developments that fail to meet affordable housing targets due to private sector developers citing a lack of return on investment”.
REPORT(PDF): Lichfields reported on timescales for outline planning
They report “since 2014 the volume of applications has been reducing, and determination times have more than doubled” and “Current reforms will help but more is needed across key areas of policy, process, practice and performance”.
REPORT: Public First reported on first-time buyers
“To boost rates of home ownership, housebuilding and economic growth, the report says the Government should help more young people to own their home by introducing a new equity loan scheme that is part-funded by industry, available for new homes and that lowers the deposit and affordability barriers to home ownership”.
REPORT: IF reported on two decades of intergenerational unfairness
They report “Out of the eight policy areas examined, young people have fallen behind in seven of them over the past two decades. Meanwhile, in too many policy areas, government spending continues to be disproportionately skewed towards older age groups”.
REPORT: CaCHE reported on social housing decarbonisation
The report “explores the financial and strategic context of decarbonisation in social housing, identifying the challenges and opportunities faced by landlords and the strategies they are adopting in response”.
REPORT: Shelter reported on affordable rent
They estimate “that in 42% of local authorities in England, so-called affordable rent is in fact unaffordable. This contrasts to social rent, which is affordable in virtually all local authorities (98%) in the country”.
REPORT: Transparency International reported on property trusts
They “found over 170 properties, worth £2.5 billion, bought using suspicious wealth and owned via complex trust structures”.
REPORT: GLA published London Housing Market Report for May 2025
The publication summarises the latest data on the London housing market.
REPORT: Knight Frank published UK Seniors Housing Market Update
They report “Some 6,380 new seniors housing units were added to supply in 2024, across 119 schemes – representing a 4% increase on the previous year’s output”.
REPORT: Savills published English housing completions forecast
They “think there will be roughly 840,000 new homes completions in the five years to 2028/29, well short of the Government target of 1.5 million”.
CORPORATE: Harworth Group published AGM Statement
They report “Housebuilders remain cautiously and selectively active in the land market and we are seeing a return to more stable reservation rates after March’s surge following the budget stamp duty changes coming into force”.
CORPORATE: Henry Boot published AGM Trading Update
They report “There are also clear signs, following changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, that the planning system has improved, and our early move to resource Hallam to allow a fourfold increase in plot applications this year is already paying off”.
CORPORATE: Watkin Jones published Half Year Results
They report “Operationally the Group’s businesses have continued to perform well, with our developments on site progressing in line with expectations. The decrease in revenues reflects the continued lower level of transactional activity as well as the contribution from the forward sale of our Gas Lane PBSA scheme in Bristol in the HY24 comparator”.
Chart of the Week
The latest MHCLG dwelling stock estimates for March 2024 show that the number of owner-occupied homes increased by 175,000 in 2023/24 while the number of private rented homes increased by 15,000. The number of homes in the social sector increased by 31,000 over the same period and the overall net increase was 221,000 dwellings.
