February saw a fall in demand among homebuyers

March 18, 2026 by Brendan O'Neill

Property Market

The latest piece of research into the housing market in the UK shows there was another fall in demand among homebuyers over the course of last month.

This research is the work of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and reveals a drop in both enquiries and agreed sales during February. This indicates that the housing market is in a mild slump at the moment, which is being exacerbated by a combination of economic uncertainty and the war in Iran. These have led to spikes in inflation and interest rates, spooking potential buyers.

According to the RICS report, expectations among surveyors in the short-term are for enquiries and sales to keep going down. The forecast for the longer-term is a lot brighter though, as +17% of them think property sales will rise during the upcoming year.

The RICS head of analytics and market research is Tarrant Parsons. He said matters had been gradually improving at the beginning of 2026, but that the war had been a real setback for the market. He added that energy and oil price rises had contributed to pushing rates up.

This view was supported by Tom Bill from Knight Frank. Talking to Financial Reporter, he said:

“Demand had been recovering after the uncertainty caused by November’s Budget, but the Middle East conflict will dampen sentiment during a traditionally busy period for housing transactions.”

This means that those with CeMAP mortgage advisor training will have to look beyond the purchase market and towards things like remortgaging in the short-term.