Market Update - March 2026

0:01Rob Dix:Hey everyone, Rob B here with Rob D and you are listening to one of our most popular episodes of each and every month, the market update. Whether you are a property investor, you work in the industry, whatever your interest in property, this is the episode for you. We bring you up to speed on everything that's happening in the market, the big stories that you may have seen, but more importantly, the stories that you've probably missed. That's coming up now.

0:30Rob Bence:Yes, welcome to The Property Podcast. In case you don't know by now, we run a business that buys more than£100 million worth of property every year. You can find out about that at propertyhub.net slash invest. And this is the episode of the podcast every month where the property industry comes to get their news and stay up to date. We go through all the news, we put it together with our own insights, what we're seeing in the market, and we package it all up and have it all done in about 20, 25 minutes or so. So let's get straight to it.

0:54Rob Dix:So let's start with house prices and let's bring you the numbers. High Facts have published their numbers for February and the market, Rob, has reached new peaks. That is a tension-grabbing headline or you could say less exciting. The market is up by 0.3 for the month but record highs is a lot sexier as far as a catchy headline goes.

1:15Rob Bence:Yeah, record highs is one way of putting it. Just kind of bumbling along is another way of putting it which is far less headline-grabbing but it's true the annual rate of growth has increased now a whole 1.3%. But when you go back and look over the last couple of years, it's really evident just how weak the second half of last year was. There were three months of monthly price falls in the second half of last year, and that's pulled the annual rate of change right down. But the data did show a very strong January, year getting off to a great start, plus an all right kind of February. But it could go either way from here on.

1:46Rob Bence:This could be the start of things kicking on again, or it could just keep on bumbling along. We'll have to wait and see.

1:51Rob Dix:What's really interesting for me when you look at the Halifax data is not the headline that they led with, but actually the comparison to last year. Because the market is up in January and Feb by 1.1%, which is nearly four times of what it grew by in the entirety of last year. So the growth of the last 12 months has really all come from the last two months. That's where the growth is. And that absolutely shows the green shoots that are starting to appear in the market. Is everyone talking about it yet? No, but is the data starting to reflect it? Yes, and then I think sentiment should catch up.

2:26Rob Dix:It's going to be interesting to follow. Last year, as we've said plenty of times on the podcast, was a terrible year for sentiment, and the numbers absolutely demonstrated that. But with people feeling a little bit more optimistic, it's prompted people to put properties back onto the market, and the supply of homes, according to this article in The Guardian, is close to record highs. This data comes from Zoopla and Zoopla have said that it was on course for the record number of new listed homes for sale in February for a decade. And that makes sense to me because if people weren't confident about the market last year, then they've waited and then people start to feel good about things again, or at least a bit better.

3:07Rob Dix:They're now going, okay, I'll try my property on the market now. Makes sense. what else was also interesting to me rob in this article was a bit further down was the affordability of buying at the moment and 40 of homes now in the uk are cheaper to buy than rent and that's a consequence of lower mortgage rates because rates are going down and mortgages are following that looser lending around affordability and what lenders are prepared to do or who they're prepared to lend to more accurately and that's super interesting as well that the market is more affordable according to supla than it probably was there's more stock on the market rob it seems the things that we've talked about on the podcast being in place for a strong market to come are absolutely now being backed up in numbers that's right and if you're talking about green

3:56Rob Bence:shoots similar sentiment expressed by the royal institution of chartered surveyors who said that there were tentative signs that the market may be turning a corner after a challenging period. And if I know the Royal Institution for Chartered Surveyors, which I think I do, that's basically I'm going, yeah, come on, let's go. That kind of language is they're not prone to big over the top statements. No, the point is people definitely are feeling better. But there are still things holding the market back on both sides. So even though affordability for first time buyers is improving, there's still the challenge of getting the deposit together in the first place.

4:26Rob Bence:That's going to be holding a large number of people back. And then on the other side, like you said, this returning confidence is bringing more people to actually list. As a result of those two factors, it's hard to imagine prices suddenly going bonkers. But it's certainly looking a lot healthier than it was last year, when basically, there was just like a giant sheet of gloom over everything and no one felt particularly inclined to do anything at all. So let's move on now from house prices to rents. And there's been ONS data out recently, which is showing one unsurprising thing and one very surprising thing.

4:55Rob Bence:The unsurprising thing is that the rate of growth for rents has slowed. That's been a trend that's been playing out for months now. The rate of growth has now slowed to 3.5%, so not that dissimilar from the general rate of inflation. The truly striking part though is the regional difference. You wouldn't be surprised to hear, I'm sure if you listened for a while, that there is a regional difference. The north generally is doing stronger by just about any metric you can pick. But the extent of the split, Rob. London rents up by an average of 1.1 percent so far below the uk average the northeast going at eight percent eight percent

5:29Rob Dix:a huge difference it is it's staggering the difference actually that's absolutely crazy the data is so strong although it will be interesting to see what develops with london rob we recently put out a youtube video about the london market which was well received and really interesting and for those operating in the london market or have an interest in it at least I'd highly recommend you go and watch that video. We'll link to it in the show notes. But one of the things that we talked about was the lack of property being built. And in time, you can see a world where rents start to go back up again.

6:02Rob Dix:Remember, it is growth. It's just slow growth. It's not that rents are falling. It's just not growing as much as it was. But you can see a world where they start to go back up again. And that's because of supply and demand. And that exact thing will probably play out in Scotland as well. Because Safe Deposit Scotland data has shown that 14 % of landlords sold up in 2025, but only 5 % bought. So there is less stock on the market. Now, we've talked extensively in the past that Scotland has a policy of rent controls. Now, that will stop rents going up while somebody is in the property. But when it comes back to the market, again, the landlords are just upwards.

6:42Rob Dix:And because of the supply and demand imbalances there. Scotland has seen surges in rental growth. So the rental controls really aren't working. You're putting people off from being in that market. They are exiting that market and therefore there's less stock, but there's still a lot of people who want to rent and that imbalance means that it pushes up rental prices. When will this be solved? Well, I think the Scottish government needs to look at it. It's not going to sort itself out under current conditions. You can understand why landlords are exiting the market and not so many people are entering the market.

7:13Rob Bence:But Rob, you know what politicians do when something's not working? They do it more. They do it harder. They double down. And that is exactly what they are doing because they're now planning to bring something in that will allow regions of Scotland, if they choose to, to cap rents both within and between tenancies. And as we've seen elsewhere in the world, such as in Argentina, we've covered this on YouTube as well. When that happens, you do just get supply dropping off. Properties just get left sitting there or they go into the short-term market or whatever and supply just falls and falls and falls until eventually the policy has to be taken away.

7:41Rob Bence:Will Scotland go that way? I don't know. But based on what we've seen over their experiments of the last few years, it is unlikely to benefit renters in the way they intend.

7:48Rob Dix:So moving on to mortgages now. The Bank of England held rates at 3.75 in February. We wait to see what happens in March. But we actually came closer to a rate cut than many expected. It was a split vote 5 to 4. 5 in favour of holding, 4 in favour of dropping it. Now the world has changed again since the last meeting so we do await to see what happens in March they may be cautious and just hold again time will tell but what is great for lending is mortgage rates are now lower year on year as you'd expect because interest rates have been cut but also as we touched on briefly earlier there's more relaxed lending criteria as well especially for first-time buyers so the mortgage market is absolutely in a much better place than it was 12 months ago even six months ago and if we are to see a stronger year ahead for the property market that's exactly what you want to be seeing and of course if interest rates continue to fall this year then affordability improves again we've touched on that before if affordability improves and sentiment improves then eventually the market reacts now that hasn't happened yet although Halifax has showed quite strong data to begin the year with in fairness but I wouldn't say anybody is bullish about the uk property market right now but once again the pieces are starting to fall into place for a stronger year ahead we will see and now we come to the favorite part of the show for you rob where we give an update on renters rights okay we'll do the niche one and then the

9:16Rob Bence:slightly more exciting one the niche one which is though going to be relevant to some listeners is that there's been a concession for this year only for landlords of student hmos so the move to indefinite tenancies is of course a giant pain for people in the student sector because the norm there is you'll have 10 month or 12 month tenancies, it'll end over the summer so you've got it ready for the next group in September and you'll have that group signed up way in advance while the previous tenancy is still ongoing. What do you do when you can't have fixed terms anymore? Well there was already this ground in there specifically for student properties that allows you to serve four months notice to expire over the summer months so it's kind of a weird workaround for student HMOs.

9:56Rob Bence:However, as written, that wouldn't have worked this year because the rules only come in in May, so four months notice takes you beyond when you would have needed to do it. So for this year only, they've cut that notice period to two months, which potentially saves the onus of some student HMOs from a tricky situation. So a small impact for a small group of people there. But you know what would be a big impact for a big group of people? If they just decided to actually scrap the Renters Rights Act entirely. I know this is not a shock U-turn from the Labour government, but this is something that reform uk has pledged to do if they get into power so they gave some kind of speech talking about a great repeal bill which is going to do away with all kinds of legislation if they get into power one of those things being renters rights and rob as someone who's just spent a lot of time updating my book to say very definitive things about the renters rights act i'm conflicted about this financially it's probably a good thing for you but in terms

10:50Rob Dix:of time and resource maybe not so good we will see i don't want to be skeptical when it comes to politicians but i have heard in the past that people have promised things and not delivered them when they've gone into power so if reform do get into power it doesn't mean it's guaranteed to go i know i know there's probably a lot of people just spitting out the coffee at the moment onto their table shock that that may occur and even take place by any politician but it is possible

11:15Rob Bence:so don't get your hopes up good night to see the end of the renters rights bill now if you're all

11:20Rob Dix:giddy with excitement from us updating you on the renters rights bill then this might send you into overdrive because we have a tax update for you making tax digital in fact it's a serious point because a lot of landlords will need to be sorting this out and it comes into effect of april 6th so we are nearly there people if you've not even looked at this yet you need to and you need to not just because it's important because it's taxed but if landlords are late with this they could face a 200 pound fine i think a lot of people are going to caught out by this rob so what we will do is we've talked about this on the podcast so we'll put a link in the show notes to it there and we've also put out a youtube video on this as well so whatever you prefer get yourself updated understand what needs to happen whether it's you as an investor or whether you work with investors make sure you get yourself informed and updated because this is coming it's not going away you can't put it to the bottom of your pile you have to get this sorted so do go and check out that content that we're putting out but Rob we bring people maybe a bit of comfort to wrap up this week's news stories because property is hard we say that all the time on the podcast we feel obliged actually because we talk about the changes it can make to people's lives over the long term and the positivity around it we feel that we need to balance it out by always pointing out that it's not straightforward it's not easy but luckily rather than just saying that

12:45Rob Bence:it's also now backed up by data yes this is a study from barclays which shows that nearly half 46 percent of transactions have experienced delays or ended up falling through and this has a financial effect these delays extra surveys extra legal fees mean that according to the survey people end up spending 43 % more than they'd budgeted for on the costs of the transaction. And even worse, as you'd expect, it's putting people off from transacting at all. So 24 % of people studied want to find a home that they can stay in forever so they don't have to do it again, which is pretty damning. And meaningful proportions would only sell to cash buyers or would only buy a new build property because they don't want to deal with chains.

13:25Rob Bence:So really, this is quite the indictment of the way that we buy and sell properties in the UK. it is insane but as you mentioned rob perhaps the more comforting point to take from this is if this is happening to you it's completely normal if you're buying a property or you're selling property and something goes wrong you haven't done anything wrong you're not unlucky it's just normal it's just part of the game but remember the game is worth it because of what it

13:51Rob Dix:will give you over time but if it was easy everyone would do it so just remember that the reason why so many people are employed in this industry to help people through the process is because it's hard. So jobs exist because it's hard. The podcast exists because it's hard. Because if it was easy, we could wrap this up in an episode, tell you how to do it, and you're away. But it's hard. Things change all the time. You've got to keep yourself updated. But remember, it is worth it for those investing. It is worth it over time. You've got to do the hard stuff in the short term to enjoy the fruits of the long term, like all good things in life.

14:25Rob Dix:You've got to put the effort in you've got to navigate the challenges but when you do that you do it well you'll be rewarded but we want to reward you more because it's time for the extra now the part of the show where we give you a little bit more and rob you've been busy not even that busy but i'll

14:40Rob Bence:tell you the story so we've spoken a lot about ai on the podcast over the last couple of years and some of the superpowers it can give you and one of the superpowers it can give you is that you can now build websites build apps do whatever you want without knowing how to code so that is what I've done. I've built various different tools, but this one I'm sharing because the ratio of how much effort it was to how cool it is, it's just absolutely off the charts. So I built a calculator that shows you where your tax actually goes. So the government doesn't do this. You don't get a receipt when you pay your taxes showing you where the money's gone, but the data is out there.

15:11Rob Bence:So I built a website that shows you. You just put in either your salary or the amount of tax you paid and you get to see a complete breakdown of where that money's gone. Pretty cool. I built that in two prompts. Two! So the first one I just literally dictated like a rambling idea of what I wanted. About 15 minutes later it was done, absolutely ready. Then there's some refinements I wanted, so one more prompt, finished. It's absolutely insane what is possible now and I would just encourage everyone to go and play with this stuff even if you think you're not technical because when you get started the barrier is so much lower than you think.

15:44Rob Bence:So I'll put the link to your personal tax receipt in the show notes so you can go check that out. If you want to play with this stuff yourself you can use basically anything i use clawed code if you don't know what that is or how to use it don't worry go to youtube search clawed code there are endless tutorials that will walk you through it step by step if you get stuck ask ai there is no excuse for not knowing how to do something anymore and that's what i find so exciting it is rob it's amazing i find

16:07Rob Dix:myself using ai more and more each day particularly clawed at the moment i know we've been talking about gemini a lot recently and we've also talked about how chat to pc isn't really performing like you're used to but Claude for getting work done is where I'm spending the vast majority of my time I just treat ChatGPT like a search engine now glorified search engine but the work the work is done in Claude my poor family and friends also have to enjoy hearing this as well you dear listener can turn off when you want but my family have to hear me go on about how Claude can help them in their roles but I'm just so excited about this it's incredible you're either ahead of everyone else or behind everyone else because of this.

16:46Rob Dix:If you are using it, you are going to look amazing at whatever you do. If you are not using it, other people are going to look great and you're not. So do not pass this opportunity by. Be an early adopter. It will give you an advantage, not just in property investment, but in all areas of your life. And of course, the other thing you can do besides that to advance in all areas, well, at least a lot of them in your life is join us next week for the podcast and join us on Sunday where we'll be in the Times answering your questions and ask rob and rob on tuesday and of course if you can't get enough of that you've got youtube to go and check out as well so lots of property goodness to keep you busy we will deliver all that to you soon but until then take care have fun bye-bye bye-bye