Every region is searching again

Zoopla's August index put the average UK house price at £272,800, up 0.9% over the year. The figure underneath it is more interesting: home searches are 7% higher than a year ago, the strongest annual increase for twelve months, and for the first time since August 2025 every UK region is showing a year-on-year rise in search activity.

Sales agreed remain 6% below last year, although the gap is closing. There are also 5% more homes for sale than a year ago, which keeps the negotiating position we wrote about last week firmly with the buyer.

The north is carrying the national figure

The regional table does most of the work in this release. On Zoopla's measure Northern Ireland leads at 5.4% annual growth. The North West is at 3.1% and Yorkshire and the Humber at 1.7%. London is at minus 1% and the South East at minus 0.3%.

By property type, flats fell 1.6% while semi-detached houses rose 1.6%, detached 1.1% and terraced 1.1%. A national average of 0.9% therefore conceals a spread of more than six percentage points between the strongest and weakest regions, and a three-point gap between flats and houses.

What it means for property investors

  • The North West is doing it on a lower entry price. 3.1% growth on an average price well below the London figure is a better arithmetic outcome than a higher percentage would be on southern capital values. It is the same reason we keep buying in Liverpool.
  • Flats are the exception, and they are where the yield is. A 1.6% fall in flat values against rising house values is a soft entry point in the exact segment that produces the strongest rental return. It also means capital growth is not the reason to buy one.
  • Borrowing capacity is the constraint on all of it. Zoopla calculates that a buyer who could afford a £200,000 mortgage in January can now borrow around £182,000 for the same monthly payment, a reduction of about 9%.

Where we are cautious

Rising search volumes are the earliest and weakest signal in the chain. Searches become enquiries, enquiries become viewings, and only a fraction become completed sales, which is precisely why sales agreed are still 6% down while searches are 7% up. We treat this as evidence that demand is recovering, not that it has recovered, and we are not paying more for stock on the strength of it.

The bottom line

Search demand has returned in every region at once, and the northern markets are producing the growth on the cheaper entry prices. Buy where the arithmetic works, not where the percentage looks largest. And keep in mind that a 9% cut in borrowing capacity is what is setting the ceiling on this market.