In our experience, a house that is not selling is usually asking more than today’s buyers will pay for it as it stands, or failing a check that a buyer, their lender or their solicitor runs before committing. In a slower market there is less room for either, because buyers have more choice and fewer of them are arriving with a mortgage approved.
The fixes are the same whether you live in the house or let it out, but a let house often sells to a different buyer, who works the price out differently.
In short
- Rightmove put the average asking price of a newly listed home at £367,440 in September, up 0.7% in the month but 0.8% lower than a year earlier, with homes for sale at a 12-year high.
- Mortgage approvals fell to 56,100 in July 2026, below the recent six-month average.
- Price against sold prices, not other asking prices, since that is what a buyer’s lender will check.
- Buyers discount for missing paperwork, uncured defects and anything a mainstream lender might decline to fund.
- A let house often sells to an investor working from the rent rather than the street.
The market your house is selling into
Fewer buyers are borrowing. The Bank of England’s Money and Credit release of 1 September 2026 put net mortgage approvals for house purchase at 56,100 in July, below an average of around 60,800 over the previous six months.
Prices that actually completed were still rising, but more slowly. The official UK House Price Index for July 2026, from HM Land Registry and the ONS, put the average UK price at £273,000, up 1.4% on a year earlier and down from a revised 1.5% in the year to June.
It is built from sales as they are registered, which takes time, so it runs behind the asking price and approval figures.
Buyers also have more choice than usual. Rightmove, a property portal covering Great Britain, said in its House Price Index published on 21 September 2026 that the number of homes available to buy was at a 12-year high.
The average asking price of a newly listed home rose 0.7% in the month to £367,440, the first monthly rise since May, leaving asking prices 0.8% below a year earlier. Those are asking prices on one portal, not the prices homes sold for.
Put together, that is more homes competing for fewer mortgaged buyers, which leaves less room for a price or a problem a buyer has to discount. It is not a market where nothing sells, and in our view it supports pricing correctly at the start rather than cutting later.
Price it against sold prices
The most common reason a house sits, in our experience, is an asking price set against other asking prices. A portal listing shows what sellers hope for. A buyer’s offer is anchored to what similar houses actually sold for, and so is the evidence their lender’s valuer will look for. HM Land Registry publishes sale prices for England, and you can search sold prices by address for free.
Use comparables a buyer would accept: the same or neighbouring streets, the same type and size of house, and recent sales.
Prices are moving at different speeds in different places. In the year to July 2026 the official index had the North East up 4.9% and the North West up 4.4%, while London fell 3.3% and flats and maisonettes across the UK fell 2.4%. A national headline is not your price, and neither is what a neighbour achieved three years ago.
Then look at time on market. Rightmove’s figures put the average time to secure a buyer at 63 days in July 2026, and in August its regional figures ran from 32 days in Scotland to 73 in London.
Rightmove itself says homes priced too high usually take longer. A house well past the local norm with viewings but no offers is usually telling you about the price, and one with almost no viewings is often telling you about the listing.
The listing is fixable without touching the price. Photographs taken in good light, a floor plan and a description that states the facts buyers filter on all cost little. Ask your agent for the sold evidence behind the figure they recommended, and ask for it again before you agree any reduction.
Condition, paperwork and the mortgage
Buyers discount what they will have to fix and what they cannot find out. Presentation is the cheap part: a clean, repaired, decluttered house photographs and views better, and small defects a surveyor would list cost less to put right before marketing than to argue about after an offer. A structural or damp problem is different, because a buyer with no quote in front of them has only a guess to price.
The paperwork has to be ready before a buyer asks for it. Gov.uk says you must order an Energy Performance Certificate for potential buyers before you market a property for sale. For a leasehold property, the buyer and their lender will want the unexpired lease length and the service charge. A short lease or an unclear service charge is a common reason flat sales stall, as we set out in why leasehold flats are not selling.
Then ask whether a buyer can borrow against the house. A buyer who needs a mortgage can only pay what a lender will lend on, and a house a mainstream lender declines because of its construction, condition or lease is left to cash buyers and short term finance.
Our guide to unmortgageable property separates the problems that can be cured from the ones that cannot. If a sale has already fallen through on a survey or a down valuation, that report is the most useful document you own, because it tells you what the next buyer’s lender is likely to find.
The chain and the timing count as well. A seller who cannot move until they have found somewhere, or a buyer who must sell first, adds weeks and risk, and a buyer with plenty of choice can favour the house that is ready to complete. If you are in a chain, say so plainly and show where it has reached.
A let house sells to a different buyer
If the house is let, or ready to let, the buyer most likely to pay for it is often an investor, and an investor starts from the rent rather than the street.
They divide the annual rent by the return they need, so a rent below market lowers the price by a multiple of the shortfall, while gaps in the rent record or missing certificates are priced on the buyer’s own estimate of the risk. We set out that sum in what your rental property is worth to an investor.
What an investor needs is a file they can underwrite: the tenancy agreement, evidence the deposit was protected, gas, electrical and EPC certificates, and a rent schedule showing twelve months of actual receipts. In England a tenancy carries on through a sale, so a tenanted house sells to a buyer content to take the tenant on, as our guide to selling a house with tenants explains. An HMO has its own checklist, in why an HMO will not sell.
Emptying the house to sell to a homeowner is a real option, but in England its cost has to be weighed before marketing, not after.
Where a landlord relies on Ground 1A, the selling ground, section 16E of the Housing Act 1988 bars letting the house, or marketing it to let, during the restricted period. Section 16M defines that period as running from the day the notice is served until twelve months after the earliest date the notice gives for starting possession proceedings. On a notice giving the minimum four months, that is about 16 months from the day it is served.
The risk: A sale that falls through inside that period leaves a house that cannot be relet until it ends.
So price the tenanted sale and the vacant sale side by side before choosing. If you are still deciding whether to sell at all, our piece on whether to sell a buy to let or keep it runs that sum.
What this means if your house is not selling
For an owner whose house is not selling, cutting the price is one answer, and not always the right one. Waiting, fixing and relisting has a strong case when the sold evidence supports your price and the problem is the listing, the paperwork or a curable defect.
The case is stronger where completed prices are still rising, as they were in the North East and North West in the year to July 2026. Rightmove said August’s fall in asking prices was the largest August drop since 2018, and September’s rise was the first since May, so check sold evidence rather than reading the season.
A cut is the right answer when recent sold prices for comparable houses sit below your asking price and holding out only adds mortgage payments, bills and, for a landlord, lost rent with no change in that evidence.
Selling to an investor is the right answer when certainty and speed matter more than the last few percent, or when a mainstream lender will not lend on the house and a mortgaged buyer was never coming.
Our read on the direction of the market is in are house prices going down.
A buyer with plenty of choice will use these same checks to negotiate. A house that fails one invites a discount sized to the cost of the fix, so putting it right first is usually cheaper than conceding it.
If your house is not moving and you want to know what it is really worth, get a free desktop valuation: send us the address, with the rent and tenancy details if it is let, and you will have an evidence-backed range within 24 hours, yours whether you sell or not.
This is general information, not advice on your situation, so take independent advice before acting.