Ben Madden, West London estate agency principal who runs Fine & Country West London and the Men's Club for Estate Agents. They unpack week‑2 2026 listing volumes, asking vs sale price gaps and rising price reductions. The conversation covers fall‑through rates, sell‑through performance and regional differences with a detailed Bristol market deep dive.
56:32
forum Ask episode
web_stories AI Snips
view_agenda Chapters
auto_awesome Transcript
info_circle Episode notes
insights INSIGHT
Steady Start Mirrors 2025
Early 2026 listings match 2025, suggesting a similar market start rather than a dramatic change.
Week 2 saw 32.8k new listings and an average asking price around £423k, signaling steady supply and price positioning.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Have The Difficult Pricing Conversation
Temper optimism and avoid listing stock at the wrong price despite apparent pent-up demand.
Prioritise realistic pricing and difficult conversations to convert listings into sales, Ben warns.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Family Valuations Revealed Emotional Bias
Christopher recounts his mother and wife's experiences with overvaluing from estate agents to show emotional bias in pricing.
He used pounds-per-square-foot and agent exchange ratios to demonstrate which valuations were unrealistic.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
UK Property Market Weekly Update - Week 2 of 2026
I look at the UK property market in the ‘UK Property Market Stats Show“ for the week ending Sunday 18th January 2026 (week 2) with the brilliant Ben Madden.
YouTube
https://youtu.be/Pti1_kA3L3I
✅ New Listings
* 32.8k new properties came to market this week, up as expected from 28.5k last week.
* 2025 weekly average: 30.6k.
* 10-year week 2 average : 27.8k
* Year-to-date (YTD): 61.3k new listings, 0.3% above than 2025 YTD (61.1k), 25.6% above 2024 YTD and 49% above the 2017–19 average (41.3k)
✅ Price Reductions
* 19.8k reductions this week
* 7.6% of resi homes for sale were reduced in December. Compared to Oct 12.8%, Sept 14.1%, August 11.1%, July 14.1% in July and 14% in June.
* 2025 average was 12.8%, versus the five-year long-term average of 10.74%.
✅ Sales Agreed
* 21.2k homes sold subject to contract this week, up expectedly from 17k last week.
* Week 2 average (for last 10 years) : 19.6k
* 2026 weekly average : 19.1k.
* YTD: 38.2k gross sales, which is 11.3% behind Week 2 YTD of 2025 (43k), yet 31% ahead of wk.2 2024 (29.1k) and 42.4% above the 2017–19 average (26.8k).
* Thoughts - January 2025 was an exceptional month as we had the stamp duty deadline for April 2025.
✅ Price Diff between Listings & Sales
* Average Asking Price of listings last week £423k
* Average asking price of Sales Agreed (SSTC) last week was £346k
* A 22.2% difference (long term 9 year average is 16% to 17%).
✅ Sell-Through Rate
* 9.9% of homes on agents’ books went SSTC in December ’25. Down as expected from 13.5% in November, 15% in October, 14.1% in Sept, 14.5% in Aug, 15.4% in July, 15.3% in June, and 16.1% in May.
* Pre-Covid average: 15.5%.
✅ Fall-Throughs
* 4,783 fall-throughs last week (pipeline of 482k home Sold STC).
* Weekly average for 2025: 6,100.
* Fall-through rate: 25.8%, slightly up from 24.9% last week.
* Long-term average: 24.2% (post-Truss chaos saw levels exceed 40%).
✅ Net Sales
* 15.8k net sales this week, up expectedly from 11k last week.
* Ten-year Week 2 average: 14.4k.
* Weekly average for 2026: 13.4k. Weekly average for 2025: 19.2k.
* YTD: 26.8k, which is 12.3% behind Wk.2 of 2024 (30.6k), 35% ahead of wk2 2024 (19.9k) and 40% ahead of wk2 2017–19 (19.1k).
✅ Probability of Selling (% that Exchange vs withdrawal)
* December Stats : 60.1%% of homes that left agents’ books exchanged & completed in December. (Note this figure will change throughout the month as more December stats come in).
* November 55.2% / October 53.3% / September: 53.1% / August :55.8% / July: 50.9% / June: 51.3% / May: 51.7% / April: 53.2%.
* Dec 24: 60.3% / Dec 23: 57.7% / Dec 22: 64.4% / Dec 21: 73.7%
✅ Stock Levels
* 613k homes on the market on the 1st of January ’26 , down from 678k on 1st of December ’25 . (605k on the market on 1st Jan ’25 for comparison)
* 434k homes in agent’s sales pipeline on the 1st Jan 2026, almost identical than 12 months ago on 1st Jan ’25 (439k).
✅ House Prices (£/sq.ft)
* December 2025 agreed sales averaged £337.09 per sq.ft. 0.6% higher than 12 months ago (£335.04) and 12.6% than 5 years ago (£299.30). The £/sqft at sale agreed matches the HM Land Registry Index with a 98% accuracy, 5 months in advance. That is why it is so important.
✅ UK Rental Market Overview
* Average Rent in December 2025 - £1,702 pcm - compared to £1,719 pcm in Dec 2024 and £1,301 pcm in Dec 2017.
* Available Rental Properties in December ’25 - 285k compared to 321k in November ’25. (Dec ’24 - 258k and Dec ’23 - 235k)
Letting & Estate Agent Podcast