Is now a good time to buy property in London?

It is probably the question I am asked more than any other. As soon as somebody finds out that I am a buying agent, sooner or later they ask:

“Is now a good time to buy property in London?”

And I invariably give them what probably sounds like the most irritatingly typical property-agent answer imaginable:

It is never a bad time to buy. It is all a question of price.

That may sound evasive, but I genuinely believe it. There is no single moment when a bell rings and announces that the London property market has reached the bottom. Nobody — estate agent, economist, mortgage broker or buying agent, myself included — has a magic crystal ball that can tell you exactly where property prices or interest rates will be in six months’ time.

What we can do is look at the market in front of us and from what I am seeing every day representing buyers across London, 2026 is presenting some of the best negotiating conditions buyers have had for quite some time.

That doesn’t mean every London property is cheap. It certainly doesn’t mean buyers should rush out and purchase the first house they see. It does mean that buyers who have their finances organised, understand what a property is actually worth and are prepared to negotiate hard can currently find some really interesting opportunities.

So is 2026 a good time to buy property in London?

For the right buyer purchasing the right property at the right price, yes, I think it can be a very good time to buy in London. Prices have fallen significantly in certain sections of the market, there is considerably more stock available than there has been during some recent periods, and sellers who genuinely need to move are increasingly having to accept the reality of today’s market.

Official figures reinforce what buyers can see on the ground. The latest available ONS house-price figures show London prices falling by 3.7% in the year to May 2026, with Inner London down 5.9%. London had recorded nine consecutive months of annual house-price falls.

More recent asking-price data paints a similarly subdued picture. Rightmove’s August 2026 index puts the average London asking price at £646,451, down 3.1% year-on-year. London homes are also taking an average of 73 days to find a buyer.

Zoopla reported in July that a typical London home had lost £3,270 in value during 2026 and that the greater choice available to buyers was creating more scope for negotiation.

But those London-wide averages only tell part of the story. The market is incredibly fragmented. Some properties are struggling badly. Others sell almost immediately. Understanding the difference is where buyers can make (or lose) a considerable amount of money.

London is a buyer’s market — but good property still sells

I would describe the current London market as slow, uncertain and predominantly buyer-friendly, but still surprisingly competitive in certain areas and price brackets. That apparent contradiction is important. There is a lot of stock available. Some properties have been sitting on the market for a very long time and there are sellers who are becoming increasingly motivated to move on.

Zoopla reported in June that three in five homes listed for sale since January had still not found a buyer, while buyer demand was 15% lower than a year earlier.

At the same time, I still see genuinely good properties in desirable locations attract immediate interest. If something special comes onto the market at a sensible price, buyers haven’t suddenly forgotten that they want it. We still occasionally see multiple offers and, in rarer cases, sealed bids or a property selling above its asking price.

So when people describe this simply as a “buyer’s market”, I would add an important qualification: It is a buyer’s market for the average property. It isn’t necessarily a buyer’s market for the best property.

The biggest problem is sellers pricing for yesterday’s market

One of the most noticeable features of the current market is the gap between what some vendors would like their property to be worth and what buyers are actually prepared to pay. A surprising number of sellers are still anchored to valuations from several years ago. They remember what their neighbour sold for at the height of the market, or an estate agent gives them an ambitious valuation, and they start from there.

Some deliberately put the property on at an inflated figure to “test the market”. I think that strategy is particularly dangerous at the moment. Buyers have too much choice. An overpriced property can sit online for months, becoming stale in buyers’ eyes. Price reductions then appear in its marketing history and buyers begin asking what is wrong with it.

Fortunately I think sellers and agents are finally becoming more realistic about this. Increasingly,there is an understanding that pricing sensibly from day one is more effective than starting considerably too high and chasing the market down. However for buyers those stale listings can sometimes create opportunities.

We negotiated a substantial discount on a Chelsea home

One recent Curetons purchase illustrates this perfectly. We were representing a buyer looking for a home in Chelsea at the multi-million-pound level.

The owner had originally marketed the property at a figure that, in my opinion, substantially overvalued it. The intention had effectively been to test the market and see whether somebody would pay the price. Nobody did. The property subsequently sat on and off the market for years.

By the time our client became interested, the seller’s circumstances had also changed. They were going through a divorce and had become increasingly motivated to complete a sale and move on. That completely changed the negotiating dynamic.

We understood what the property was worth in the current market rather than what the seller had once hoped it might be worth, and we were ultimately able to negotiate a very substantial reduction from the original asking price for our client.

This is why looking at the asking price alone tells you surprisingly little. As a buyer, I am often just as interested in questions such as:

Why is the owner selling?

How long has it really been available?

Has it previously been withdrawn?

Have other sales fallen through?

Has the seller already found somewhere to move to?

And, most importantly, how motivated are they to do a deal?

Finding a good property matters. Finding a good property owned by a motivated seller can be much more valuable.

A 10% discount — or more — can sometimes be achievable

Buyers currently have considerably more negotiating power than they became accustomed to during stronger markets. That doesn’t mean I recommend automatically offering 10% below every asking price. If a property has been priced correctly, doing so may simply mean losing it.

But where a seller started with unrealistic expectations, or their circumstances have made them increasingly motivated, discounts of 10% or potentially more can certainly happen.

The important comparison isn’t:

“How much below the asking price did I get?”

It is:

“How does the price I am paying compare with what this property is actually worth?”

Getting £200,000 off a property that was £400,000 overpriced isn’t necessarily a good deal. Equally paying close to the asking price for something that has been sensibly priced and is genuinely rare may represent excellent buying.

Sometimes the best negotiation is walking away

A weak market should never become an excuse to buy the wrong property. We recently advised another client to withdraw from a purchase after their survey uncovered significant structural problems. On the surface the property appeared attractively priced. However once we understood the potential liabilities, even that lower price no longer represented good value. Our advice was simple: walk away.

That is something buyers sometimes find difficult after spending months searching, negotiating an offer, instructing solicitors and paying for surveys. But the money you have already spent investigating a property is irrelevant compared with the amount you could lose buying the wrong one. A “bargain” isn’t a bargain if you subsequently inherit a very expensive problem.

Surveys can also create another negotiation

Walking away isn’t always necessary. We regularly renegotiate purchases following survey results where defects materially affect what a property is worth.

In one recent purchase, a specialist damp survey identified work that needed to be carried out. We returned to the seller with the evidence and negotiated a substantial further reduction in the agreed purchase price — one that more than covered the expected cost of the remedial works.

This is another advantage buyers currently have. In a frantic market, sellers may simply move on to the next buyer. In today’s market, losing a committed purchaser can potentially mean another several months searching for a replacement. That gives a credible buyer negotiating leverage.

Some sellers discover the hard way what their property is worth

Another recent case demonstrates why I don’t recommend buyers become emotionally attached to a deal. We submitted what we believed was a sensible offer on behalf of a client. The seller refused it. We moved on.

Around six months later, after failing to achieve the price they wanted elsewhere, the seller came back to ask whether our buyer would still purchase at the figure we had originally offered. By then, our client had moved on too.

There is an important lesson in that for both sides. For sellers, an offer from a serious, proceedable buyer has value. For buyers, being prepared to walk away is one of the strongest negotiating positions you can have.

Where are the opportunities in London in 2026?

One part of the market I think is particularly interesting is roughly the £2 million to £10 million bracket in Kensington and Chelsea. I wouldn’t call property at this level “cheap”, and I would be very cautious about throwing around the word “bargain”, but there are definitely deals to be done.

This section of the market is being squeezed by a combination of factors: transaction costs, mortgage costs for leveraged buyers, uncertainty over future taxation, cautious international demand and sellers whose price expectations haven’t always adjusted sufficiently.

By contrast, the very top end of London’s market has proved surprisingly resilient. Super-prime buyers operate under different financial constraints, and genuinely exceptional trophy properties are scarce. That market can therefore behave very differently from a perfectly good £3 million or £5 million London house.

I often describe the problem as being in the squeezed middle of prime London rather than the absolute top.

London flats are facing a more difficult market

Houses are currently more desirable than flats in many of the searches I deal with. Even some first-time buyers would rather stretch themselves financially to buy a small house than purchase a flat if they have the option. There are several reasons for that.

Concerns over leasehold ownership remain. Service charges on some developments have become extremely high. Building safety and cladding concerns haven’t disappeared from buyers’ minds either, add stretched first-time-buyer affordability to the equation and parts of London’s apartment market face considerable headwinds.

That doesn’t automatically make flats bad purchases. In fact weaker demand can create opportunities. However buyers need to look extremely carefully at the lease, service-charge history, planned major works, sinking fund, management arrangements and the likely pool of future purchasers if and when they eventually come to sell.

What about London new builds?

There is also a substantial amount of new-build stock that developers need to sell. This varies enormously by scheme, but we are seeing particular pressure in markets including certain developments around Nine Elms and Canary Wharf, as well as pockets elsewhere in London.

When developers have unsold completed or near-completed inventory, buyers may be offered significant incentives or discounts. Again, I hesitate to call these “bargains”.

The correct question is not how big the developer’s advertised incentive appears to be. The question is what the flat is worth compared with comparable resale property and what you are likely to be able to resell it for in the future. A £50,000 incentive isn’t particularly exciting if you are paying a £100,000 new-build premium.

But where the underlying price stacks up and the developer genuinely wants to move stock, there can undoubtedly be deals worth investigating.

Who is in the strongest position to buy?

Several types of purchaser have particularly strong hands at the moment. Cash buyers are obviously attractive because they remove financing risk and can potentially move quickly. First-time buyers with their finances completely organised can also be appealing because there is no property chain beneath them. Upsizers and downsizers who don’t have to rush can wait until the right opportunity appears. Investors who are disciplined about yield, costs and acquisition price may benefit from negotiating against motivated vendors. And international buyers, particularly purchasers from the United States, can be in a strong position when exchange rates work in their favour, although London’s changing tax environment has undoubtedly made the UK less attractive to some international purchasers.

The common thread isn’t really buyer type. It is being proceedable. In a weak market, buyers sometimes assume they hold all the cards and therefore don’t need to make themselves attractive. That’s a mistake. The strongest combination is: a motivated seller + a well-prepared buyer + a realistic price.

Should you wait for mortgage rates to fall?

Mortgage rates obviously matter. The Bank of England held Bank Rate at 3.75% at its July 2026 meeting, with three members of the Monetary Policy Committee actually voting for an increase to 4%. Buyers should therefore never assume borrowing costs can only move down.

Anyone taking out a mortgage should make sure the repayments are genuinely affordable and consider what would happen to their finances if their mortgage became more expensive, but I wouldn’t base an entire property purchase on trying to predict the next interest-rate move.

Waiting for cheaper mortgages can also backfire. If mortgage rates fall substantially, thousands of buyers who have been sitting on the sidelines may suddenly decide they can afford to move. More buyers mean more competition. More competition can mean less negotiating power and ultimately higher property prices.

Put another way, if I had the choice between buying the same property today for £900,000 with a more expensive mortgage that I may potentially refinance later, or waiting and paying £1 million once borrowing becomes cheaper and competition returns, I would rather buy it for £900,000. Again, price matters.

You cannot time the London property market

This is perhaps the biggest misconception I encounter. Buyers tell themselves: “I’ll wait another six months.” “Prices might fall another 5%.” or “Mortgage rates might be cheaper next year.” All of those things might happen, or they might not.

Zoopla’s latest forecast expects UK annual price growth to slow towards approximately 1% by the end of 2026, while suggesting London and the South East could experience flat prices or modest falls.

But forecasts are exactly that: forecasts. If you are buying a home that you expect to live in for seven, ten or fifteen years, whether you perfectly identify the bottom of one particular market cycle becomes considerably less important. What matters much more is whether you buy the right property and whether you pay the right price for it.

Political and tax uncertainty is a genuine risk

There are reasons for buyers to remain cautious. One of my biggest concerns about the London property market is taxation and the uncertainty created when buyers don’t know what future property taxes might look like.

Stamp Duty is already a substantial consideration for London purchasers. Under current rules, somebody buying a single £2 million property in England pays Stamp Duty at rates reaching 12% on the portion above £1.5 million. Additional property and qualifying non-resident purchases can also face substantial surcharges on top.

Discussion around further reform of property taxation, a potential land tax and what is commonly described as a possible “mansion tax” creates additional uncertainty at precisely the section of the market where transaction taxes are already significant.

At the same time, Britain continues to suffer from a fundamental shortage of homes in many desirable locations. We simply aren’t building enough of the right property in the places where people most want to live.

Over the long term, that constraint is one of the reasons I remain positive about good London property, even if government policy and taxation concern me.

A slower market can actually be safer for buyers

There is another reason I think today’s conditions shouldn’t automatically frighten purchasers. A slower market gives you something that was often lacking during boom periods: time.

Time to investigate. Time to commission a proper survey. Time to read the lease. Time to inspect the service-charge accounts. Time to obtain comparable evidence. Time to negotiate. And time to walk away.

During extremely competitive markets, buyers can feel pressured to offer immediately, increase bids repeatedly and make enormously expensive decisions within days. That isn’t necessarily a safer environment simply because prices are rising. A softer market, approached intelligently, can potentially be a much better environment in which to buy.

Why using a buying agent can matter even more in a buyer’s market

People sometimes assume a buying agent is most useful when property is difficult to find. Actually a market with too much choice creates its own problems. There are plenty of properties available at the moment, the difficulty is working out which ones represent value.

A property being reduced by £250,000 doesn’t automatically make it good value. A property being on the market for a year doesn’t necessarily mean the vendor will negotiate, and a property attracting three competing buyers isn’t necessarily overpriced.

The job is to understand the individual property, comparable transactions and the seller’s position. That includes identifying motivated vendors, accessing opportunities before or away from the open market, interpreting comparable evidence, examining previous marketing history, negotiating the initial purchase, scrutinising survey findings, renegotiating where appropriate — and telling a client to walk away where the numbers simply don’t make sense.

In the current market, there is considerable potential both to secure an excellent deal and to massively overpay. That is why price analysis and negotiation matter so much.

What would I do if I were buying London property today?

I would start by getting absolutely everything in order. If borrowing, I would understand exactly how much I could afford and have my mortgage arrangements ready. I would have a solicitor lined up. I would make myself as attractive and credible a purchaser as possible.

And then rather than simply looking for the prettiest property on Rightmove, I would actively look for the intersection between a good property and a highly motivated seller. Those are the situations in which some of the most interesting purchases can be made. And when I found one, I would negotiate hard.

So should you buy London property now — or wait?

There isn’t one answer that applies to everybody. If your finances are stretched to their absolute limit and an increase in mortgage costs would put you in difficulty, I would be cautious.

If you expect to move again in a year or two, buying and selling costs also need very careful consideration, but if you have secure finances, are buying for the medium or long term and find a genuinely good London property where the price makes sense, I wouldn’t reject it simply because somebody tells you prices might be slightly cheaper next year.

There is no perfect moment. The property you want may no longer be available by then. The seller may change their mind. Mortgage rates might move in the opposite direction or lower rates could bring a wave of competing buyers back into the market.

The biggest mistake I think some London buyers are making in 2026 is either sitting around waiting for a mythical “perfect moment” to buy — or failing to negotiate hard enough when they do find something.

You cannot control where the property market goes next. You can control what you buy. And you can control what you pay for it. Which brings me back to the answer I give whenever somebody asks me whether now is a good time to buy property in London:

It is never a bad time to buy. It is all a question of price.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is 2026 a buyer’s market in London?

Broadly, yes. Buyers currently have considerably more choice and negotiating power than during recent stronger markets. However London’s market is highly fragmented. Good houses in sought-after locations that are priced correctly can still attract multiple buyers, while overpriced or compromised properties may remain unsold for months.

Are London house prices falling in 2026?

The latest official ONS figures available at the time of writing showed London house prices falling 3.7% year-on-year to May 2026, with Inner London recording a larger fall of 5.9%. Rightmove’s August asking-price index subsequently recorded London asking prices 3.1% below the same month in 2025.

How much below asking price should I offer on a London property?

There is no sensible standard percentage. On an accurately priced and desirable property, offering significantly below asking price could simply lose you the house. Where a property has been substantially overpriced or the vendor is motivated, reductions of 10% or more can sometimes be achievable. The important question is the property’s underlying market value rather than the percentage discount from an arbitrary asking price.

Should I wait for mortgage rates to fall before buying?

Not necessarily. Lower mortgage rates can improve your affordability, but they can also bring more purchasers back into the market and increase competition. Buyers should focus on whether they can comfortably afford their mortgage and whether the property represents good value rather than attempting to predict interest rates perfectly.

What types of London property currently offer opportunities?

Parts of the £2 million to £10 million prime market, particularly in Kensington and Chelsea, are presenting interesting negotiating opportunities. Certain new-build developments — including some schemes around Nine Elms and Canary Wharf — also have developers motivated to sell remaining stock. Every individual property still needs to be assessed on its merits.

Is it better to buy a house or a flat in London in 2026?

Houses are currently particularly sought after, while parts of London’s flat market face headwinds from affordability, leasehold concerns, service charges and building-safety issues. Weaker demand can create opportunities for flat buyers, but careful due diligence on the lease, management, service charges and future major works is essential.

Is London property still a good long-term investment?

London can still offer attractive long-term investment opportunities, but investors need to be much more disciplined about acquisition price, rental yield, financing, service charges, tax and other costs. The fact that London property has historically performed well does not make every London property a good investment.

Market information in this article is based on data available in August 2026. Property prices, mortgage rates, tax rules and market conditions can change. Buyers should obtain appropriate financial, tax, legal and surveying advice for their individual circumstances.