The 5 facts hitting the housing market hardest in the last 7 days.
5FF 25th September 2026
1. Labour considers lowering mansion tax threshold to £1.5m in desperate and foolish attempt to scrape together a few more quid while creating a cliff edge market distortion.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/labour-budget-mansion-property-tax-latest-zfdhn85dn
2. Rightmove shows falling FTB asking prices, falling national averages and buyer registrations down 9%
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/news/content/uploads/2026/09/Rightmove-HPI-21st-September.pdf
3. Labour lives up to their “tax and spend” reputation, with both taxes up, and spending up £7bn over budget, pushing gilt yields and mortgage rates back up again.
https://gbtt.info/data-release-psf-august-2026.html
4. Propertymark reports transaction times reach a record high, the first time in 12 years that more than 50% of agents have reported deals taking longer than 17 weeks to exchange.
https://www.propertymark.co.uk/static/3ff74370-5dac-4322-b1ade51ab687a225/Housing-Insight-Report-July-2026.pdf
5. BestAgent surpasses Rightmove for the first time for property listings in most postcode areas in England and Wales, and uniquely includes Land Registry Local Land Charge data on every listing where it’s available.
https://bestagent.property/
This week’s livestreams
Help To Buy coming back at the budget? 😩 — 2026-09-18 (8,045 views)
Rightmove: More Price Falls – For FTB’s this time. Live Q&A — 2026-09-21 (9,152 views)
[Wed 23 Sep livestream: placeholder — X post 24 Sep says Wed 23 livestream was derailed (Housing Stig + London pub after BestAgent board). No finished Restream event for 23 Sep; no YouTube VOD on channel streams for that date.]
Most-viewed this week
X: Reply on Purplebricks damage — ‘I really hope so… no one will ever know the true extent of damage done by the Purplebricks tragedy…’ (7,608 views)
TikTok: The Shameless Truth About Help to Buy (672 views)
Instagram: why Help to Buy makes the rich richer (629 views)
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdbwDdZjaqi
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