It’s the end of another week. Like most weeks, there have been a series of different property market headlines… some of which entirely contradict each other!
Sometimes those contradictions might even appear on the same page. Or at least in the same stack of headlines to choose from, from your various digital subscriptions.
Here is a selection of genuine headlines just from the past few days:
“Asking prices up 1.2% in May.”
“UK housing market faces strain as bond yields rise.”
“Property professionals feel upbeat about the market.”
“Buyer choice at an 11-year high as asking prices edge up.”
“Buy-to-let landlord purchasing activity rises.”
“Buy-to-let retreat continues as 250,000 former rented homes come to market.”
“Lloyds launches £5,000 deposit mortgage for first-time buyers.”
All of these are (broadly) accurate. None of them, on their own, gives you the full picture. Understanding why requires knowing something about how financial news works — and how it differs from what is actually happening on the ground in your local market.
Why negative stories dominate
The bond yield story is a good example. This week, the yield on 10-year UK government gilts touched 5.19% – the highest level since July 2008.
That is a significant number, and it is entirely legitimate news. Rising gilt yields push up the swap rates that lenders use to price fixed-rate mortgages. If they stay elevated, borrowing costs will follow.
The story is real.
But there is certainly more to it. Gilt yields are a macro-financial indicator, more readily understood and consumed by an audience of investors, pension fund managers, and economists. They measure the cost of government borrowing and sentiment about UK fiscal policy. They are not truly a measure of whether a family in Edgware can sell their three-bedroom semi-detached house this spring and move before their eldest heads to secondary school in September.
Financial journalism is drawn to warning signals because its primary readership responds to risk.
Property journalism aimed at homeowners and buyers should, by contrast, be asking: what does this mean for transactions that are actually happening now, in real places, involving real people? The two perspectives produce very different articles.
But that doesn’t stop property journalists looking for the angle.
And that is because there is a simple reality: alarming, even sensational headlines attract more clicks – and in the world of digital media, that is how news outlets drive revenue. “Market faces strain” will always outperform “Market remains steady” in a news feed.
It’s not a conspiracy – or at least, not exactly; it is just how attention works online. If it is a conspiracy, the public is a tacit co-conspirator.
Either way, the result is that readers absorb a consistently more negative picture of the market than the underlying data supports.
What the positive signals actually tell us
Let’s set the macro aside for a moment and look at what the transaction-level data shows this week – about the UK market as a whole, first, and then a closer look at the Edgware property market next.
Rightmove’s May index, released this week, shows asking prices rose by 1.2% in the past month, reaching an average of £378,304.
That is above the average 1.0% increase typically seen at this point in the year, suggesting seller confidence is more than just holding firm. Admittedly, asking prices remain 0.3% lower than a year ago, but over 12 months – and 12 rather turbulent months at that – you’d have to say a 0.3% fall in a year feels fairly nominal.
In the meantime, the number of sales agreed is running just 4% below last year.
The North-South divide in these numbers is also important, and actually starts to tell a story more relevant to us here in North London: the North West is seeing asking price growth of 2.6% year-on-year. London prices overall are down 2.4%.
National headlines blend these figures into an average that doesn’t serve either market particularly well – and is why it is always more important to know our local data.
Buyer choice at an 11-year high sounds, at first glance, like a warning about oversupply and a buyers’ market. In practice, it reflects a market with enough activity to generate choice without collapsing prices – the kind of balanced environment that serious buyers and motivated sellers actually prefer to the frenzied conditions of 2020–2022, when properties could be sold within hours… and equally when buyers were making decisions they often later regretted.
The buy-to-let news in that list deserves particular attention – not least for the polarisation of those two headlines listed earlier.
Professional landlords and investors tend to be less emotionally driven; for them, property investment is a pragmatic exercise. And it is true: many landlords have decided to sell their rental properties, for a range of reasons, but a significant number have been worried about the Renters’ Rights Act and other legislative changes, at a time when margins are becoming more squeezed.
That said, it is also true that buy-to-let purchasing activity is increasing.
How can both things be true? Because whilst some landlords are selling up, other professional landlords are buying that stock to increase their portfolios.
When professional, investment-savvy landlords increase purchasing activity, it reflects a calculated assessment that the numbers work: yields are viable, demand from tenants is strong, and the entry price is reasonable – at least in terms of the maths involved.
This is an underappreciated indicator, and it is pointing in the right direction.
The £5,000 deposit mortgage: the week’s most underreported story
Of all this week’s property news, the story about a new £5,000 deposit mortgage, albeit capped to a £300,000 purchase price, tells us something about the attitudes of lenders right now – and yet, it is receiving little in the way of mainstream coverage.
Lloyds Banking Group, the UK’s largest mortgage lender, launched a five-year fixed mortgage this week, available to first-time buyers with a deposit of just £5,000.
Available through Lloyds and Halifax, and through third-party brokers, it carries a rate of 5.89% with no product fee, on properties worth up to £300,000. It is open to both employed and self-employed applicants. The deposit must come from the buyer’s own savings rather than a gifted contribution.
The significance of this should not be underestimated. Saving a deposit has consistently been identified as the single greatest structural barrier to first-time buyer home ownership – more significant than monthly mortgage payments for many renters, who are often already paying comparable sums in rent (and often more).
This product directly addresses that barrier. It will not be suitable for every buyer, and the 5.89% rate reflects the higher LTV risk. But for someone with a stable income, a good credit record, and £5,000 saved, who previously faced years of additional saving, this is a material change in what is possible.
The honest position on bond yields
It would be misleading to dismiss the gilt yield story entirely.
Sustained high gilt yields feed into swap rates, and in turn these feed into the way that fixed mortgage products are priced up, which has a direct effect on local property prices.
The average two-year fixed rate has already moved from 4.25% before the Iran conflict to around 5.18% this month, before edging back slightly. If political uncertainty around a potential Labour leadership change adds further pressure to gilt markets, some of those improvements could reverse.
But the transmission from gilt market to completed transaction takes time – typically months, not days. The Bank of England’s base rate, held at 3.75% in April, remains the anchor, and on that score, more news this week: inflation fell from 3.3% to 2.8% in April.
Analysts have been quick to caution that we could see it head up again, but being one of the main considerations when it comes to the MPC setting the Bank of England base rate, this sort of news makes it more likely they will vote to hold rates again when they next meet on June 18, rather than voting for an increase ahead of the summer.
And that would help keep mortgage rates level, perhaps even encouraging lenders to bring their product rates down.
In fact, mortgage products are currently being cut by major lenders even as yields spike, because swap rates and base rates do not move in lockstep with gilt yields at the long end of the curve.
The picture is genuinely complex, which is precisely why it rarely fits a clean narrative – or indeed newspaper headline – in either direction.
What is actually happening in the Edgware property market?
Understanding the wider national market is valuable, but knowing how the local Edgware market compares and how it is currently performing is of much greater use.
And the picture in Edgware is broadly positive – if you don’t set your barometer by average property prices and their growth or decline over time.
We tend to focus on sale prices rather than asking prices here at Petermans, as ultimately that is what concerns sellers.
Nevertheless, as the news stories this week largely focus on asking prices due to the release of the Rightmove Index, let’s take a quick look in that regard:
- The average property asking price in Edgware is currently £551,038, according to data from Dataloft
- That is a 0.3% fall in a month, and therefore counter to the national growth of 1.2% as reported by Rightmove
- Edgware asking prices also dropped 1.3% in the past 3 months
- There has been a 0.3% drop in asking prices over the last 12 months.
However, the average sale price, currently £502,497, has actually increased by 1% over the same period.
Asking prices may have fallen, but sale prices have risen. One represents confidence; one represents recent realities.
They are two different stories; our job is to help you understand both things together if you are thinking about selling your home.
Our own view? As long as prices are broadly stable – and these fluctuations are quite minor, even if inflation marks a real-time decrease that is slightly greater – it is more useful to review volume of sales than prices achieved. The number of people selling properties locally still looks positive. 510 in the past 12 months, around 6% lower than the previous 12-month period, but as we have written about before, March 2025 pulled a lot of sales forward as people rushed to avoid missing the end of the stamp duty holiday. Sales transaction figures are naturally going to be affected by that.
To still be within 10% of the previous year is encouraging.
This is a perfect example of why, when you are moving home, it is important to speak to an expert consultant in the local market, rather than get pulled along by lazy narratives.
The practical conclusion
No matter what you see or hear when it comes to national property headlines, it is important to take a balanced view. Remember, they are written for different audiences, measuring different things, and are produced in an editorial environment that prefers alarm over nuance.
The market right now on a national level is neither in the sort of crisis the press will often imply, nor is it experiencing the sort of boom that over-optimistic sellers sometimes price for (and indeed which some over-optimistic estate agents seem to encourage).
It is a functioning market, though, seeing transaction numbers tracking similar levels to last year; a little lower perhaps, but nevertheless supported by genuine buyer demand.
Homes priced correctly are selling. Those priced ambitiously are not. Rightmove data shows a correctly priced property sells in 36 days on average, against 127 days for one that requires a reduction.
That gap – 91 days – is the real story this market needs to be told more loudly and more often. Not stories about gilt yields, not even stories about Rightmove headline figures, but the simple reality that the price set on ‘day one’ is the single most significant decision a seller makes. If you would like to understand what the market is genuinely doing in Edgware right now – not what the national headlines say, but what is actually happening on your street – we are always happy to talk it through.