Rightmove research from 2025 showed that February and March were the best months to list a home, with the highest number of homes listed in these months making it to completion, closely followed by January and April.

In fact, nearly seven in ten homes (66.3%) listed during February and March went on to complete, compared to an average success rate of 55.53% across 2025.

This trend in 2025 was in line with the same data that Rightmove had tracked across millions of properties listed for sale since 2012, excluding 2020 due to the pandemic.

February also has the joint quickest time to find a buyer on average historically, alongside January, at 51 days for a typical home to find a buyer, closely followed by March and April at 52 days, with the number of buyers enquiring about homes for sale usually highest at this time of year.

In 2025, according to the Rightmove House Price Index, the average time to sell a home ranged between 59 and 77 days.

Rightmove recorded its busiest ever Boxing Day for visits to the website, with visits almost doubling (93%) between the quietest day of the year on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

This was a bigger bounce in visits to Rightmove than last year, when the increase was 87%.

The number of people sending enquiries to estate agents to go and view homes for sale increased by 67% in the five days after Christmas compared with the five days before Christmas.

Meanwhile, the number of new properties being listed for sale on Rightmove more than doubled (+143%) in the five days after Christmas compared with the five days before Christmas.

Rightmove predicted a bigger than usual Boxing Day bounce, as those who paused due to the Budget uncertainty were expected to join the post-Christmas boost in home-moving activity and this appears to be the case.

Whilst the period between Boxing Day and New Year usually sees a spike in activity compared to the quietest period of the year leading up to Christmas, it’s actually January where traffic to the website really starts to spike, with visits in the second week of January typically 69% higher compared to the first week of December.

January also records some of the highest traffic days of the entire year on Rightmove, underlining the exceptional levels of buyer activity in the New Year.

Post Budget Response

Following The Budget, OnTheMarket released a special edition of their Property Sentiment Index to gauge the impact of the long-awaited announcement and provide an early indicator of the market outlook ahead.

Expectations of the impact to the market are mixed with 34% expecting the overall Budget to have a negative impact, 16% have a positive outlook and 30% believe the announcement will have no effect on the property market.

Policy-specific measures such as the ‘Mansion Tax’ have largely been seen as neutral, with 66% reporting it will have no impact on their buying or selling plans and only 2% stated it as a specific reason for cancelling their moving plans.

The survey shows that buyers and sellers have been largely undeterred by the policies announced with over half already making the decision to press ahead and even accelerate their plans in the 10 days following The Budget.

50% of those surveyed have said the outcome of The Budget has had no impact on their moving plans, despite previous concerns, while 6% have actually accelerated their plans following the announcements.

Of the remaining 44% of that had been planning a move, only 15% reported either delaying or cancelling following The Budget and the final 20% are yet to decide.

The latest data from Barclays highlighted that, Post-Budget, most UK adults say their confidence in their ability to buy a home is unimpacted (58%), though just over a quarter (27%) feel their confidence has decreased. Meanwhile, 50% of those who intend to move in the next year say they had paused their plans in anticipation of the Budget, but are now resuming them following the announcement.

The reports from OnTheMarket, Rightmove and Barclays give a bright outlook for a post-budget bounce-back and a strong start to 2026.