Inflation outpaces both home price and rental growth

Asking prices edged down in most English regions during August, making the national average drop by 0.3%, according to Home.co.uk’s latest Asking Price Index.

The average asking price in England and Wales is £361,570.

Sales headlines

• Scotland and the South West indicated the largest price falls.
• Annualised home price growth across England and Wales continues to be well below the level of inflation at just 0.8% overall. We estimate that real growth currently stands at -4.7%.
• The unsold sales stock count for England and Wales remains very high and is currently the largest September reading since 2013. This surfeit of property is putting severe downward pressure on pricing.
• Supply of new sales properties entering the market during August 2025 is 11% higher than in August 2023 but 3% lower than in August 2024. Demand continues to outpace supply.
• The North West is the top regional property market growth leader with an impressive year-on-year gain of 3.7%, followed by Yorkshire at 3.5%.
• London is now the worst regional performer with an annualised loss of 0.5%.
• Sales market momentum remains elevated although this heightened throughput is not enough to significantly reduce the unsold stock total. Typical Time on Market is currently three days higher than in September last year and looks set to rise further.

Rental headlines

• The annualised national growth in asking rents slides even further into the negative (now -2.2%), driven down by increased supply (12.5% year-on-year). The national growth figure is in the red due mainly to the negative performance of London, but negative contributions also now come from Scotland, Wales and all English regions except the East Midlands and the North East.
• Only 11 of the 33 London boroughs indicate positive asking rent growth and two of those are below the 1% mark. In Kensington borough, rents are down by 8.6%.