Asking prices fell 0.6% in the month to June, the biggest June drop in fourteen years. In a month that normally brings a small seasonal rise, sellers cut their prices instead. If you are trying to buy this year, that single number tells you more about your position than any forecast can.
The average asking price now sits at £376,191, and prices are 0.5% below where they were a year ago. Behind that figure is a bigger shift in the balance of power. There are more homes on the market than at any point in years, buyers are enquiring less, and sellers are competing for a smaller pool of attention. For most of the last decade the pressure sat on the buyer. Right now, for the first time in a while, a lot of it has moved the other way.
Here is what is actually happening, and how to use it if you are buying.
More Choice Than Buyers Have Had in Years
The headline is not really the price drop. It is the supply. The number of homes available for sale is running at a record level for this point in the year, and that changes the experience of buying. Where you might once have been one of six offers on a property within a weekend, you are now more likely to be choosing between several homes that have each been sitting on the market for a few weeks.
That shows up in the activity data. Sales agreed across June are running around 7% below last year, and buyer enquiries are down roughly 15%. Fewer buyers chasing more homes is the definition of a market that favours the person doing the buying. Sellers who priced optimistically in the spring are now adjusting, which is exactly why the June figure came in negative when it usually does not.
None of this makes a home cheap. Prices are broadly flat year on year, not falling off a cliff. But flat prices combined with record choice and less competition give you something buyers have been short of for years, which is time and leverage. You can view more properties, take longer over the decision, and negotiate from a position of genuine strength rather than panic.
The Bank of England Is Still Holding
On 18 June, the Bank of England held Bank Rate at 3.75%. The Monetary Policy Committee voted seven to two to hold, with the minority wanting a cut rather than a rise, which tells you the direction of travel even though nothing changed on the day. Inflation was 2.8% in the year to May, still above the 2% target but a good deal calmer than it has been.