Homes for sale at a 12-year high: how to get ahead of the queue before Christmas

By Mark Grantham on 11th October 2026

This article is less than a year old

The number of homes for sale is the highest it has been at this point in the year since 2014, buyer enquiries are down and mortgage approvals are falling. If you need your property sold and the money in the bank this year, the November auctions are the last where transactions complete before Christmas. Entries for most of the November auctions close in the next two weeks.

The September market reports all point the same way. Rightmove reported on 21 September 2026 that the number of homes for sale is the highest it has been at this point in the year since 2014, a 12-year high. The number of buyers enquiring is 9% lower than a year earlier.

Zoopla followed on 1 October. Sales agreed are down 9% on last year, and there are 5% more homes on the market, rising to 8% more in London and the south. The Bank of England counted 54,900 mortgage approvals for house purchase in August. The average over the previous six months was around 60,100.

Homes are still selling. Rightmove's own figure is that almost two thirds of homes listed are still finding a buyer. But there is a queue, and it is longer than at this point in any year since 2014. With more homes for sale than buyers to go round, buyers can afford to be choosy. They pass over anything that looks overpriced or that has been sitting on the market for months. The sellers who lose out are the ones who list at a hopeful price, wait for viewings, and are still waiting for an offer in the spring.

What the September figures say

These are the headline numbers from the three September market reports (Rightmove, Zoopla and the Bank of England). They describe the market a seller is listing into right now, not a forecast.

Sources: Rightmove House Price Index, 21 September 2026; Zoopla House Price Index, 1 October 2026; Bank of England Money and Credit, August 2026, published 29 September 2026. The next Bank of England release is due on 29 October 2026.

What a crowded market does to a slow sale

The Zoopla figure that stands out is the one about homes coming back on the market. A quarter of the homes that came to market in September had already been for sale earlier in 2026. Six in ten of those came back with a lower asking price. In London, a third of the flats being listed had been on the market before. Richard Donnell, Zoopla's executive director, put the buyer side of it plainly: "Buyers are simply more cautious and selective about what they view and offer."

That is the pattern of an estate agent sale in a buyer's market. The property goes on at an optimistic price, viewings are thin, and after two or three months the agent suggests a reduction. Sometimes an offer arrives. Then the buyer's mortgage takes longer than expected, the rate they were quoted has moved, and the chain behind them wobbles.

Zoopla's own analysis in May 2026 found that 44% of the homes listed for sale over the previous three years failed to find a buyer. For a seller who needs a result, each of those months is a month lost. The property comes back to market looking stale, with a lower price and a listing history that buyers can see on the property websites.

An unconditional auction (the traditional kind, where the sale is binding on the day) turns the problem round. Instead of waiting for one buyer at a time, every interested buyer is in the same place on the same date and has to compete. Instead of an offer that can be withdrawn, the fall of the hammer is an exchange of contracts, which makes the sale legally binding.

The buyer pays a 10% deposit on the day, with completion 28 days later, which is when the rest of the money is paid and the sale is finished.

The seller sets a reserve price, which is the lowest price they will accept, so the certainty does not come at the cost of control. The trade-off is that the reserve has to reflect the market you are selling in. Our two recent posts on setting your own reserve and the cost of a high reserve explain why.

The Budget on 28 October 2026 sits in the middle of this window. Whatever it brings for property tax, a buyer who has exchanged contracts in the auction room cannot use it as a reason to walk away. A buyer who has merely made an offer through an estate agent can.

November: the last auctions where transactions complete before Christmas

Most auction contracts complete 28 days after the auction. Most solicitors' offices close between Christmas and the new year, and many wind down from around 23 December. Working back from there, the November auctions are the last that put the sale money in your account before Christmas. Entries usually close about four weeks before the sale (see the usual deadline for entries), so for a mid-November auction that means around the third week of October.

These are the London residential auctions in November, taken from our London property auction dates page. For each one we show the completion date under a standard 28-day contract, and a rough date by which the auctioneer needs your instruction. The early-November entry dates have already passed, although auctioneers do sometimes accept a late entry if the legal pack (the bundle of title documents, searches and forms that buyers read before bidding) is ready. Auctioneers outside London run similar calendars, and we can place a property anywhere in the UK.

Auction dates as published by each auctioneer at 1 October 2026 and subject to change. Entry deadlines are our estimate at four weeks before the auction; each auctioneer sets its own. Completion dates assume the standard 28-day contract, which can be shortened or extended by agreement before the auction.

The 24 November Savills sale is the tightest fit, completing on 22 December, just before most solicitors close for Christmas. The 17 to 19 November auctions give a week of margin. If the buyer wants to complete early, as cash buyers often do, the money can arrive sooner still.

Five things to do this week

If one of those dates is the one you want, the order of work is the same whichever auctioneer you use. A successful auction sale relies on good preparation, including preparation of the legal pack, so that comes first.

1. Get an auction estimate now. Our free auction sale estimate tells you what the property is likely to fetch and whether auction fits your circumstances. It is better to know that before instructing a solicitor.
2. Instruct a solicitor on the legal pack straight away. The auction legal pack needs the title, searches, property information forms and, for a flat, the lease and management pack. Local authority searches are the slowest item and some councils are still weeks behind, so order them on day one. A pack that is ready lets the auctioneer accept a late entry. A pack that is not ready rules you out, whatever the date.
3. Agree a guide price and reserve for this market. Rightmove found that 74% of the homes sold this year were priced right first time and never needed a reduction. The auction equivalent is a guide price (the advertised figure) that pulls in bidders, and a reserve (your private minimum) that you would be content to sell at. A reserve set at last year's prices means the property does not sell on the day, which is why being realistic about the reserve price is so important.
4. Sort out possession. If the property is let, decide whether to sell with the tenant in place or empty (known as vacant possession). Under the Renters' Rights Act, a landlord who wants to sell has to use the intention-to-sell ground and give the tenant four months' notice. That means an empty-property sale before Christmas is only realistic if you have already served notice. Our tenanted property guide covers both routes.
5. Plan for a 28-day completion. Before auction day, have a provisional plan for your onward move and your removals, and ask your lender for the figure to pay off your mortgage (the redemption figure). The auction sale process page sets out the full timeline week by week.

Missed November? A December auction still locks in the sale before Christmas

The December auctions do not complete before Christmas, but they do something that may matter more. A sale in the auction room on 10 December is a binding exchange of contracts on 10 December. The property is sold and the deposit is held. The completion money arrives in the first or second week of January, not at some unknown point in the spring. For a seller who would otherwise spend the holiday wondering whether a buyer will come back after new year, that is a very different Christmas.

The London December sales, again from our dates page, are:

• 2 December: McHugh & Co
• 8 December: Savills
• 9 to 10 December: Auction House London
• 10 December: Harman Healy, Knight Frank and BTG Eddisons
• 15 December: Barnard Marcus and Clive Emson
• 16 December: Barnett Ross and Town & Country
• 16 to 17 December: Allsop
• 17 December: BidX1 and Strettons

Entries for the mid-December sales close around the middle of November. That leaves time to put a legal pack together from scratch, as long as you instruct a solicitor now.

Some sellers are surprised to learn that auctions still run in December, assuming it would be a quiet month. It is not. If December were quiet, auctioneers would not go to the expense of holding a December sale, and as the list above shows, almost every London auctioneer does. There are still plenty of buyers out there, and a well-prepared property gets their full attention.

One caution: this only works with an unconditional auction

Every date and timescale in this article assumes a traditional, unconditional auction, whether in the room or in the extended online format. The so-called "modern method of auction" is a conditional auction.

In a conditional auction the winning bidder pays a reservation fee and gets 28 or 56 days in which nobody else can buy, while they try to arrange a mortgage and exchange contracts, if they ever do. That puts the lender, the survey and the risk of a collapsed sale back into the process. A December conditional auction can easily still be unresolved in February. Our guide to unconditional versus conditional auctions explains the difference and why we recommend the unconditional route.

Next steps

If you want your property sold before the end of the year, the quickest way to find out whether a November or December auction is realistic is to ask us. Request a free pre-auction appraisal or call us on 0800 862 0206. We will tell you what the property is likely to fetch, which auctioneer suits it and whether the legal pack can be ready in time.