RICS: House Sales Outlook Hits 3-Year Low – What Sellers Do Now

By Lisa Hayes · 12 November 2026

Estate agents and surveyors are now gloomier about the next twelve months of house sales than at any point in more than three years. The October 2026 RICS UK Residential Market Survey, published on 12 November, shows agreed sales falling, fewer homes coming to market and a 12-month sales expectations balance of -17%, the weakest since July 2023. For you as a seller, it means buyers are thinner on the ground, prices are softening at the edges, and the homes that sell this winter will be the ones priced for the market we actually have rather than the one we had in the spring.

I read the RICS survey every month because it is the closest thing we have to a live feed from the people standing in hallways with buyers. Price indices tell you what has already happened. RICS tells you what agents and surveyors are seeing right now, and what they expect next. This month the message was blunt, and I think it deserves more than a headline.

So here is the full picture: what the numbers say, why they have turned, where in the UK is holding up, and what I would do if I were putting my own home on the market between now and spring.

What did the RICS October 2026 survey actually show?

The short version: demand is stuck, sales are slipping, and the people who know the market best expect it to get a bit worse before it gets better.

• -17%12-month sales expectations, weakest since July 2023
• -24%agreed sales balance, down from -18% in September
• -36%house price balance, down from -34%
• -34%market appraisals, lowest since November 2025

According to RICS, as reported by Property Industry Eye, City AM and PropertyWire, the main readings for October were:

Indicator (net balance)	September 2026	October 2026	Direction
New buyer enquiries	-24%	-24%	Unchanged, still weak
Agreed sales	-18%	-24%	Worse
New instructions (homes coming to market)	+6%	-8%	Turned negative
House price balance	-34%	-36%	Worse, second month running
12-month price expectations	0	-17%	Sharply worse
3-month sales expectations	n/a	-11%	Negative
12-month sales expectations	n/a	-17%	Weakest since July 2023
Market appraisals	n/a	-34%	Lowest since November 2025

Two lines in that table matter more than the rest.

The first is agreed sales dropping from -18% to -24%. Enquiries were already weak in September, but agents were still managing to convert enough of them into deals. In October, that conversion got harder. Fewer buyers are getting to the point of shaking hands.

The second is 12-month price expectations swinging from 0 to -17%. A month ago, surveyors on balance thought prices would be roughly flat a year from now. Now they lean towards a fall. RICS respondents put a rough number on it: a modest decline of around 1% over the coming year. That is not a crash. It is, however, a clear change of mood in a single month.

What is a "net balance", and why should you care?

If you have never looked at RICS before, the percentages can be confusing. A net balance is not a percentage change in prices. It is the share of surveyors reporting a rise minus the share reporting a fall. So a house price balance of -36% means considerably more surveyors saw prices slipping in their patch than saw them rising.

That makes RICS a measure of breadth and direction rather than size. It tells you how widespread the softness is, not how deep it goes. A -36% price balance alongside indices showing only small falls is entirely consistent: lots of places are a little weaker, rather than a few places collapsing.

Why has the housing market turned down again?

Mortgage rates. Almost everything in this survey traces back to the cost of borrowing, and the cost of borrowing traces back to something no homeowner in Kettering or Kilmarnock can do anything about.

Earlier this month the Bank of England raised Bank Rate to 4%, its first increase since mid-2023. It did so because inflation has been pushed up by an energy price shock linked to the conflict in the Middle East. Consumer price inflation stood at 3.5% in the latest ONS figures, and the Bank now expects it to approach 5% next year.

Tarrant Parsons, head of market research and analysis at RICS, spelled out the knock-on effect:

"The Bank of England's rate rise was accompanied by a clear warning that policy may need to tighten further if higher energy costs feed through into wider prices. With inflation now projected to approach 5% next year, mortgage rates are likely to remain elevated for longer, thereby continuing to weigh on the market."

Read that again, because it is the key sentence of the whole release. The problem is not just that rates went up. It is that the Bank has openly said they might go up again. Buyers are being asked to commit to a 25-year loan while being told the price of money may rise further. Many are, quite sensibly, waiting.

Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank, put it more pointedly:

"The latest slump in confidence shows how decisions in Washington not Westminster are shaping the outlook for the UK housing market."

I think he is right, and it is worth sitting with. A month ago, before the Autumn Budget, most of the conversation in our industry was about stamp duty and domestic policy. In the end the Budget left stamp duty alone, and it turned out not to be the thing that mattered. Oil and gas prices did.

How much more are buyers paying?

The pressure shows up in the lending data. According to the Bank of England, mortgage approvals for house purchase fell to 53,443 in September, the lowest since December 2023. The effective rate on newly drawn mortgages was 4.63% in September, and that was before the November rate rise had fed through to lenders' pricing.

For a buyer, every quarter-point on a mortgage rate translates into a smaller loan for the same monthly payment. Lenders' affordability tests are stress-tested too, so when rates rise, the maximum someone can borrow shrinks. The buyer who could stretch to £300,000 in the summer may now be looking at something lower. That buyer has not gone away. They have just moved down a price band, or decided to sit tight.

Is it all bad news? The one hopeful line in the data

Not quite. And I would rather give you the full picture than the scary half of it.

Tom Bill also noted that borrowing costs "have started edging lower over the last week, a trend that would only accelerate if a lasting ceasefire was agreed." Swap rates, which lenders use to price fixed-rate mortgages, react to market expectations faster than Bank Rate does. If the geopolitical picture calms, fixed rates can come down before the Bank of England moves at all.

The other quietly encouraging detail is that buyer enquiries did not get worse. They held at -24%, unchanged from September. That is weak, but it is not falling off a cliff. People are still looking. They are simply slower to commit.

There is one more point I would make in fairness to sellers. When new instructions fall, the stock of homes for sale grows more slowly. Fewer rivals in your street means your home has a better chance of standing out to the buyers who are active. It does not cancel out weak demand, but it helps.

Which parts of the UK are holding up best?

The national figure hides a real split. RICS did not publish regional balances in the coverage I have seen, so I cannot give you precise numbers, but the direction by area is clear.

According to the survey, price trends were weaker than the national average in London, the South East, East Anglia and the West Midlands. At the other end, Northern Ireland continued to report firm price growth, while Scotland and North West England recorded modest increases.

Area	RICS price trend, October 2026	What it means for sellers
Northern Ireland	Firm price growth	Still a seller-friendly market if priced sensibly
Scotland	Modest increases	Steady; well-presented homes are still selling
North West England	Modest increases	Affordability is helping; buyers are still active
West Midlands	Weaker than national average	Expect more negotiation and longer marketing times
East Anglia	Weaker than national average	Price realistically from day one
South East	Weaker than national average	Higher prices mean rate rises hit harder
London	Weaker than national average	Most exposed to mortgage costs and stretched affordability

The pattern makes sense once you think in terms of loan sizes. A rate rise adds far more to the monthly cost of a £450,000 mortgage in Surrey than a £150,000 mortgage in Bolton. Where prices are highest relative to incomes, buyers are pushed closest to the limit of what lenders will allow, and a small change in rates tips them over. Where homes are cheaper, there is more headroom.

If you are selling in London or the South East, this is the survey telling you to be especially careful about your asking price. If you are in Belfast, Glasgow or Manchester, you are in a better position than the national headlines suggest. Our guide to UK house prices in 2026 has more on how different regions have moved this year.

How does this fit with the other house price figures?

RICS does not exist in isolation, and I always check it against the hard price data. This month they tell the same story from different angles.

• Lloyds reported prices down 0.6% month on month in October and 1.2% lower than a year earlier.
• Nationwide showed annual growth slowing to 0.5% in October, with prices broadly flat on the month.
• Bank of England mortgage approvals were at their lowest since December 2023 in September.
• Rightmove cut its own revenue forecast this week, citing falling buyer demand and sales.

Put together, that is a market that has moved from "slowing" to "gently falling". Not a crash. Not a correction of the 2008 kind. But a market where the default for an average home is now a small price fall rather than a small rise.

RICS is useful precisely because it tends to lead the price indices by a few months. Surveyors see buyers walk away before that shows up in completed sales data. A 12-month expectations reading of -17% suggests the indices are likely to stay soft into the first half of 2027.

What does the RICS survey mean if you are selling your home?

This is the part I care about most, because numbers on their own do not help you decide anything.

Here is how I would read October's survey if I were a homeowner thinking about selling.

1. Your realistic price is probably lower than your neighbour's spring sale

Comparable sales from March, April or May were agreed when mortgage rates were lower and buyers more confident. Using them unadjusted is the single most common reason homes sit on the market this winter. With the RICS price balance at -36% and Lloyds showing a 1.2% annual fall, a home that would have fetched £300,000 in the spring may realistically achieve a few thousand pounds less now, and in the weaker regions possibly more.

If you have not had a fresh valuation in the last few weeks, get one. Our guide to working out what your house is worth walks through how to sense-check an agent's figure against recent sold prices rather than asking prices.

2. Agents' valuations may still be optimistic

I will say this plainly, because somebody should. Market appraisals, the visits agents make to value homes, have fallen to -34%, their weakest since November 2025. Fewer people are inviting agents round. That means agents are competing harder for fewer instructions, and one of the oldest ways to win an instruction is to tell the homeowner a higher number than the agent down the road.

An inflated valuation feels lovely for about three weeks. Then the viewings dry up, the first price reduction goes on Rightmove, and buyers start wondering what is wrong with the place. Jeremy Leaf, a north London agent and former RICS residential chairman, said the bad news "does seem to have brought more realism to some sellers who appreciate this is as good as it gets – at least for a while." Those are the sellers who will move this winter.

3. Time to sell is going to stretch

When agreed sales fall while enquiries hold steady, it usually means buyers are taking longer to decide, negotiating harder, and walking away more readily after surveys. Even a sale that is agreed is more exposed: a buyer whose mortgage offer comes in lower than expected, or whose own buyer pulls out, can bring down a chain.

If you are curious how long similar homes near you have been sitting, our guide on checking how long a property has been on the market shows you how to find out. It is one of the most useful reality checks a seller can do.

4. Chains are more fragile when rates are rising

Every link in a chain is a buyer with a mortgage, and every one of those mortgages is being priced in a rising-rate environment. One lender reprices, one buyer's affordability fails, and the whole thing wobbles. If you are relying on a long chain to complete before a fixed date, build in contingency. Our guide to fixing a broken property chain covers what you can do when it goes wrong.

What should you do now if you need to sell?

Your options depend on one question above all: how much does timing matter to you compared with price?

If you can wait and price is everything

There is a reasonable case for sitting tight until spring, particularly in the regions RICS flagged as weaker. If Tom Bill's point about borrowing costs edging lower turns into a proper trend, buyer confidence could recover faster than the survey implies. But be honest about the risk. The surveyors' central expectation is for prices to be around 1% lower in a year, not higher, and the Bank of England has not ruled out another rise. Waiting is a bet, not a guarantee.

If you are selling through an estate agent now

• Price to the market from day one. The first two weeks on Rightmove and Zoopla are when you get the most attention. Starting high and cutting later wastes them.
• Ask agents for sold evidence, not asking prices. Specifically, sales agreed in the last three months, ideally since the rate rise.
• Check buyers' positions carefully. A buyer with a mortgage agreement in principle dated before November may find their numbers have changed.
• Get your paperwork ready early. Anything that shortens the gap between offer and exchange reduces the time for something to go wrong.
• Understand what you are paying. In a slower market, sole agency tie-in periods matter. Our estate agent fees guide explains what to look for in the contract.

If timing matters more than squeezing out the last pound

Some people do not have the luxury of waiting for spring. A job move, a separation, an inheritance to settle, a new home already found, or simply not being able to face six months of viewings in a falling market. For them, the RICS numbers make the case for considering a guaranteed sale more seriously than they might have in a busier year.

Selling to a cash house buyer removes the mortgage from the buyer's side of the deal, which is exactly the part of the market this survey says is under strain. You will accept less than full market value, and you should go in with your eyes open about how much less. Our guide to what percentage of market value cash buyers pay sets out realistic ranges. But a lower, certain price can be worth more than a higher, uncertain one that falls through in February.

The honest comparison is not "cash offer versus my agent's valuation". It is "cash offer versus what I would realistically net after a longer sale, a likely price reduction, a few more months of mortgage and bills, and the risk the chain collapses." Done properly, that comparison is often closer than people expect. Sometimes it is not, and the open market is clearly better. The point is to do the maths rather than guess.

If you are weighing up a quicker route, our sell house fast page explains the main options, from cash buyers to auction, and what each one involves.

What happens next for the housing market?

Here is my reading of the outlook, based on what RICS and the other data are telling us.

Through winter, expect more of the same. The 3-month sales expectation of -11% and the 12-month figure of -17% both point to fewer transactions. Prices are likely to drift lower in most of southern England and hold up better in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the North West.

Mortgage rates are the swing factor. If the Bank of England follows through with another increase, the softening will deepen. If energy prices ease and swap rates keep edging down, fixed-rate mortgages could get cheaper in the new year, which would bring buyers back faster than the gloomy expectations suggest. Neither outcome is certain, and anyone who tells you they know which it will be is guessing.

This is not 2008. I want to be clear about that because some headlines will inevitably reach for crash language. Surveyors expect a fall of around 1% over a year, which is a world away from the double-digit drops of the financial crisis. What we have is a market where buyers have the upper hand for a while, and sellers who price for that will still move.

The rental side is moving the other way. RICS found tenant demand turning positive at +7%, while landlord instructions fell to -30% and rental price expectations jumped to +41%, the strongest since early 2024. Fewer landlords are adding homes to rent while more people are priced out of buying. That matters to sellers in one practical way: if you are selling a buy-to-let or a home with a tenant in it, there may be more investor appetite than the owner-occupier market suggests.

My honest view

I have watched a few of these turns now, and the sellers who come out well are rarely the ones who guessed the market right. They are the ones who looked at it clearly, decided what mattered most to them, and acted on that.

If price matters most and you can wait, waiting is a legitimate choice. If you need to move, the October survey is a strong argument for pricing realistically now rather than chasing the spring with a number the market will not pay. And if certainty and speed matter more than the last few thousand pounds, it is worth seeing what a guaranteed sale would actually look like for your home before you rule it in or out.

Whichever way you lean, start with a proper number. You can compare offers and get a free, no-obligation valuation in a couple of minutes, and see side by side what the open market, cash buyers and other routes might mean for you. No pressure, no hard sell. Just the figures, so you can make the decision that suits you.

Source: RICS UK Residential Market Survey, October 2026, as reported by Property Industry Eye, City AM and PropertyWire. Lending and price index figures from the Bank of England, Lloyds and Nationwide as cited. Figures are net balances unless stated otherwise.