Why volumes move first

Sellers do not reduce quickly. A house that is not selling is, for a while, simply a house that has not sold yet, and the owner has every reason to wait. So the first thing a slowing market produces is not cheaper houses but fewer transactions: listings that stay listed, offers that are made and not accepted, chains that take longer to form.

Published price indices lag this by two to three quarters, because they measure completions. By the time an index turns, the market that produced those completions is six months old.

What the last three quarters show

Transaction volumes across our postcodes are meaningfully below the same period last year, while average asking prices have barely moved. That gap is the whole story. It means sellers are still pricing to last year's evidence and buyers are not.

The second signal is time. Average days on market has extended, and the proportion of listings that have been reduced at least once has risen. Reductions are the mechanism by which the gap eventually closes, and they are running ahead of the headline price data.

If you are selling

The first two weeks are worth more than they were eighteen months ago, because there are fewer buyers circulating and most of them will see your listing in that window. Pricing to the evidence rather than to ambition is not pessimism; it is the only way to reach that audience while they are looking.

A property that launches correctly in a quiet market often achieves close to its guide. One that launches high and reduces twice usually lands below where it would have started.

If you are buying

This is the part of the cycle where being able to proceed is worth real money. A buyer with nothing to sell, or with a sale already agreed, has leverage that simply does not exist when volumes are high.

Look at days on market before you look at price. A property that has been available for four months at a number nobody has taken is a different negotiation from one listed last week, even if the asking prices are identical.

What would change it

Volumes recover before prices do, in the same order and for the same reason. If the number of agreed sales starts rising while asking prices are still soft, that is the turn. We watch agreed sales rather than completions for exactly that reason: completions describe a market that has already happened.