The average price of homes newly listed for sale has jumped by 2.8% this month, or £9,893, taking the figure to £368,031 in the sharpest January rise in Rightmove’s 25-year House Price Index history and the biggest monthly increase since June 2015.
After lagging behind long-term norms for much of 2025, the property portal says national asking prices are now 0.5% higher than a year ago, recovering to near August 2025 levels as market sentiment improves following the uncertainty around the November Budget.
While most regions record price rises, the East Midlands and Scotland buck the trend with falls, highlighting continued local volatility. And despite the upbeat start to the year, sellers face intense competition: buyer choice is at its highest for this time of year since 2014, and with a third of homes already on the market seeing price reductions, setting a realistic asking price remains crucial to securing a sale.
Rightmove’s Colleen Babcock said: “It’s an encouraging start to the year to see sellers confident enough to list their homes at higher prices after several months of muted price growth last year, coinciding with more potential buyers returning to market. Some buyers, particularly first-time buyers, won’t want to see prices rising too quickly. However, asking prices are only back to where they were in the summer of 2025 before the Budget rumours began surfacing, which unsettled the market and dented confidence.
“This new year seller confidence is a good sign, but sellers would do well to listen to the guidance of their agent when setting their asking price and avoid being over-optimistic. There’s a twelve-year high number of homes for sale for this time of year, so buyers have lots of choice, and a third of properties that were already on the market for sale have had a price reduction. This means that sellers need to be realistic and balance the price they want to achieve with the likelihood of being able to find a buyer in their local market at that price.”
Rightmove’s first snapshot of market activity at the start of 2026 shows a marked increase in activity from the quieter December period into January. In the two weeks after Christmas Day, buyer demand, measured by enquiries sent to estate agents, rose by 57%, while the number of homes newly listed for sale increased by 81% compared with the two weeks before Christmas.
More recently, buyer demand has been lower than a year ago, when activity was elevated by buyers seeking to complete purchases ahead of the April 2025 stamp duty increase in England, but remains in line with 2024 levels. It remains to be seen whether this higher level of activity is sustained as the spring selling season approaches.