Market Comment (March 2026) - A Changing World and Property Challenges
March has been a month of genuine contrasts in the property market. Asking prices have edged up, buyer activity has held relatively firm, and the spring selling season has arrived broadly on cue, yet there's an undercurrent of uncertainty that anyone thinking about moving needs to be aware of.
The spring lift has arrived — but sellers need to be realistic
Asking prices for newly listed homes rose by 0.8% in March, bringing the national average to £371,042. That's a fairly typical seasonal movement — February was unusually flat, and March generally brings a modest lift as the spring market gets going. So far, so normal.
What's less typical is the broader competitive landscape for sellers. The number of homes currently available for sale is at its highest level in over a decade, and properties are taking longer to find a buyer than at any equivalent point since 2013. Rightmove's Colleen Babcock put it plainly: with buyers having this much choice, pricing competitively from the outset isn't just advisable — it's essential. Homes that launch at an optimistic price and rely on reductions later are having a noticeably harder time than those priced realistically from day one.
The message for anyone thinking of selling this spring is straightforward: the demand is there, but buyers are switched on, well-informed and have plenty of alternatives. First impressions — on price as much as presentation — matter more than they have for some time.
The Iran conflict and mortgage rates: what we know so far
Since US-led strikes on Iran at the end of February triggered wider instability across the Middle East, there's been understandable nervousness about what rising oil prices and inflation fears might mean for the UK property market. Mortgage rates, which had been falling steadily, have started to move upward in response.
Rightmove's tracker showed the average two-year fixed rate rising to 4.51% in the week of 9 March, up from 4.24% the week before — though some market monitors put the figure higher still. For context, that translates to roughly £45 more per month on a typical new purchase mortgage compared to a few weeks ago, though it's still around £70 less per month than buyers were facing at this point last year.
Buyer demand has not fallen since the conflict began, which is genuinely encouraging, but as Rightmove acknowledge, it's early days. The Bank of England, which had been widely expected to cut rates at its March meeting, is now likely to hold. The direction of mortgage rates in the coming weeks will depend heavily on how the geopolitical situation develops — something nobody can predict with confidence. For buyers in a position to move, there's a reasonable case for not waiting too long to lock in a rate.
First-time buyers: more options than you might think
One of the more surprising stories of the past month came from the Building Societies Association, whose research found that nearly half of aspiring first-time buyers had never actually spoken to a lender or mortgage broker to find out what they might be able to borrow. Of those who were then shown the options available to them, two-thirds found they could potentially buy sooner than they'd assumed.
That gap between perception and reality is significant. Lenders have been actively expanding their low-deposit mortgage offerings, with several major banks and building societies now offering products at 95% and even 98% loan-to-value. Conditions remain tough — high rents have made saving for deposits difficult, and lenders will scrutinise finances carefully at higher loan-to-value ratios — but the picture isn't as bleak as many assume without ever actually checking.
If you've been putting off finding out what you could borrow because you assumed the answer would be discouraging, it's genuinely worth having that conversation with a broker first.
The upsizing challenge — particularly in London
For those already on the ladder and looking to move up, the numbers are telling a difficult story. The gap between the average asking price for a typical first-time buyer home and a larger family property is now at its widest since records began in 2001 — a difference of around 52% nationally. In London and the South East, that gap widens further still, to around 60-61%.
Flats, which make up a large share of first-time buyer homes in our part of London, have seen slower price growth than houses since the pandemic — a pattern driven by the shift to flexible working, ongoing concerns about leasehold terms, service charges and cladding, and a general preference for outdoor space. That disparity has made the step from a flat to a house more financially demanding than it has been at any point in recent memory.
For Leytonstone and the surrounding E11, E10 and E17 postcodes, this is a real consideration. If you're sitting in a flat and wondering whether now is a sensible time to make that move to a house, the honest answer is that conditions are neither straightforwardly easy nor impossibly hard — but they do require careful planning, a clear understanding of your equity position, and realistic expectations about what your current home will achieve on the market.
A note on housing supply
One story with longer-term implications is the sharp drop in new construction activity. The value of new UK construction projects fell by more than a third in the three months to the end of February, with major schemes being paused across residential, office and civil engineering sectors. Developers are also reportedly seeking reductions in affordable housing requirements from local authorities as market conditions tighten.
For buyers and sellers in East London, this matters as background context: if fewer new homes are coming through the pipeline, the pressure on existing stock — particularly family-sized houses — is unlikely to ease significantly in the near term.
What to take into April
This is a market that rewards preparation and clear-headedness over either panic or excessive optimism. Sellers with well-presented, realistically priced homes are still finding buyers. First-time buyers who explore their options properly are often finding routes to ownership they'd written off. And those looking to upsize should take stock carefully of both sides of the transaction before committing.
If you'd like an honest conversation about what current conditions mean for your own situation — whether you're buying, selling, or working out which to tackle first — we're always happy to talk it through.
We make sure you make an informed move
If you would like to learn more about Leytonstone, what the area has to offer, and how to achieve your goals in the local property market, we can help. To arrange an appointment, call us on 020 8558 1147 or send us an email at info@tradingplacesproperty.com
You will find Trading Places Estate and Letting Agents at 46 Church Lane, Leytonstone, London, E11 1HE; and we look forward to assisting you.
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