Charging Upfront Fees For Valuations

UK Property Market Update The headlines for the 4th week of the 2026 UK Property Market (week ending Sun 1st February 2026) 🟩 Listings - Strong. 
133k new properties have come onto the market YTD , already 1% ahead of 2025, 14% above 2024, and 28% higher than the 2017–19 average. 🟩 Gross Sales - Strong
 89k UK homes sold STC YTD house , 19% higher than 2024 and 27% above pre Covid norms. 🟩 Net Sales - Strong
 67k UK net home sales YTD (Gross sales less Fall Thrus) running 21% ahead of 2024, 38% ahead of 2023 and 23% above the 2017–19 average. 🟩 Overvaluing - Awful 48.4% of the homes that left UK Estate Agents books in January were withdrawn unsold. Main cause - blatant overvaluing supported by long sole agency agreements of 20+ weeks. Discussed in greater length in the YouTube video     Detailed Breakdown …   ✅ New Listings   •           36.6k new properties came onto market this week in week 4, up as expected from 35.2k last week. •           2025 weekly average: 30.6k. •           10-year week 4 average : 33k •           Year-to-date (YTD): 133.1k new listings, 0.1% above than 2025 YTD (132k), 13.9% above 2024 YTD (116.8k) and 27.5% above the 2017–19 average (104.4k)   ✅ Price Reductions   •           20.5k reductions this week •           12.2% of resi homes for sale were reduced in January. Compared to Dec 7.6%, Nov 8.8%, Oct 12.8%, Sept 14.1%. Jan 25 - 12.8%. Jan 24 - 11.1% •           2025 average was 12.8%, versus the five-year long-term average of 10.74%.   ✅ Sales Agreed   •           26.1k homes sold stc this week 4, up from 24.6k last week. •           Week 4 average (for last 10 years) : 24.4k •           2026 weekly average : 22.2k. •           YTD: 88.8k gross sales, which is 7.7% behind Week 4 YTD of 2025 (96.2k), yet 19.1% ahead of wk.4 2024 (k) and 26.6% above the 2017–19 average (70.1k). •           Thoughts - January 2025 was an exceptional month as we had the stamp duty deadline for April 2025 - here it was a good sales month. To be ahead of 2024 and pre Covid years by such an amount is good to see.   ✅ Price Diff between Listings & Sales   •           Average Asking Price of listings last week £416k •           Average asking price of Sales Agreed (SSTC) last week was £355k •           A 17.1% difference (long term 10 year average is 16% to 17%).     ✅ Sell-Through Rate   •           13.6% of homes on agents’ books went SSTC in January ’26. (Jan ’25 - 15% / Jan ’24 - 13.9%) •           Pre-Covid average: 15.5%.   ✅ Fall-Throughs   •           5,336 fall-throughs last week (pipeline of 482k home Sold STC). •           Weekly average for 2025: 6,100. •           Fall-through rate: 20.5%, slightly down from 21.5% last week. •           Long-term average: 24.2% (post-Truss chaos saw levels exceed 40%).   ✅ Net Sales   •           Big jump in net sales from last week. 20.7k, up from 19.3k last week and 15.8k the week before). •           Ten-year Week 3 average: 19.5k. •           Weekly average for 2026: 16.7k. •           Weekly average for the whole of 2025: 19.2k. •           YTD: 66.8k, which is 6.7% behind Wk.4 of 2025 (71.6k), 21% ahead of wk4 2024 (55.4k) and 23% ahead of wk4 2017–19 (54.2k).   ✅ Probability of Selling (% that Exchange vs withdrawal)   •           Jan ’26 Stats : 51.6% of homes that left agents’ books exchanged & completed in Jan. (Note this figure will change throughout the month as more Feb stats come in). •           December 60.2% / November 55.2% / October 53.3% / September: 53.1% / August :55.8% / July: 50.9% / June: 51.3% / May: 51.7% / April: 53.2%. •           Jan 25: 54.3% / Jan 24: 50.7% / Jan 23: 54.4%  / Jan 22: 68.6%   ✅ The YouTube Show   The YouTube  ‘UK Property Market Stats Show’ for the week ending Sunday 1st February 2026 (week 4) with the brilliant Iain McKenzie   https://youtu.be/2lqWNQLVFRU