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The Property Market Is Changing. Here’s What I Think Happens Next
Trevor’s honest predictions for the super-prime property market over the next 6–12 months.
I want to be clear about something before I start.
I don’t make predictions lightly.
After twenty two years in this market, I have learned to be cautious about anyone including myself who claims to know with certainty what happens next in property. Markets are complex. People are unpredictable. And the variables that shape the prime and super-prime market are more numerous and more interconnected than most commentators are willing to admit.
But I do have a view. And I think the next six to twelve months are interesting enough to be worth sharing.
Where We Are Right Now
The market has been through a significant period of recalibration.
The sharp rises in interest rates that defined 2023 and much of 2024 created a period of genuine uncertainty at every level of the property market including at the top. Buyer confidence softened. Transaction volumes fell. Sellers who didn’t need to move held their positions and waited.
What we have seen over the course of 2025 and into 2026 is a gradual but meaningful stabilisation. Rates have come down. Confidence has returned. And the buyers who spent the last two years watching and waiting are beginning to act.
That shift is real. I am feeling it in my conversations every week.
Buyer Confidence
The single most important indicator I watch is not price or volume. It is the quality of the conversations I am having.
When the market is uncertain, conversations are exploratory. Buyers are gathering information, testing the water, reassuring themselves that the market hasn’t moved against them.
When the market is turning, conversations become decisive. Buyers stop asking what they should be doing and start asking how they make a specific thing happen.
The conversations I am having right now are increasingly in the second category.
That doesn’t mean everyone is ready to move. There are still buyers sitting on the fence, waiting for a signal that may or may not come. But the proportion of genuinely motivated, well-prepared buyers in active conversation has increased meaningfully over the last three to four months.
My expectation is that this trend continues and accelerates through the first half of 2027. The buyers who act in the next six months will, in my view, look back and recognise this as the right moment.
Pricing
Pricing at the super-prime level is always nuanced. The market above five million pounds does not move in the same way as the broader market, and headline figures about average prices or percentage changes rarely tell the story of what is actually happening at the top.
What I can say is this.
The most significant correction in pricing happened some time ago. The properties that were overpriced when the market softened have largely been repositioned either reduced or withdrawn. What remains available at sensible pricing represents, in many cases, genuine value by historical standards.
The properties that are correctly priced and presented to the right audience are moving. Not instantly, but with a confidence and a speed that we were not seeing eighteen months ago.
I do not expect dramatic price rises in the next six to twelve months. But I do expect the window of relative value that currently exists to close. The buyers who move in that window will benefit. The ones who wait for certainty before acting will find they have missed it.
Stock
One of the most significant constraints on the market right now is supply.
The number of genuinely exceptional homes available at any given time in the super-prime market has always been limited. But the combination of owners who don’t need to sell, a prolonged period of uncertainty that kept discretionary sellers on the sidelines and a market that has not yet fully recovered its confidence has created a period of unusually constrained supply.
That is beginning to change.
I am seeing more instructions come to market now than at any point in the last two years. Owners who have been waiting for the right moment are deciding that the moment has arrived. The autumn pipeline is the strongest it has been for some time.
But supply at this level will always be finite. And as buyer confidence continues to build, the competition for the finest homes will intensify.
The homes that genuinely deserve to be called exceptional – the ones with the irreplaceable plots, the extraordinary settings, the quality that runs through every detail – will not sit for long.
International Demand
One of the defining characteristics of the super-prime market in the UK is its international dimension.
The finest homes in Surrey, London and the wider Home Counties have always attracted buyers from across the world. And the factors that make the UK compelling to international buyers — the legal system, the schools, the relative stability, the culture, the language have not diminished.
What has changed is the competition.
The super-prime buyer who ten years ago would have looked exclusively at the UK now has a genuinely global menu of options. The Cotswolds competes with Girona. Surrey competes with parts of France, Switzerland and Portugal. London competes with Dubai, New York and Singapore in a way it simply did not a decade ago.
This is not a reason for pessimism. The UK’s finest addresses remain among the most compelling in the world.
But it does mean that the presentation, the positioning and the marketing of exceptional UK property has never mattered more. The international buyer has options. The homes and the agents who understand how to reach and persuade them will win. The ones who rely on domestic demand alone will find the market harder than it needs to be.
Where The Opportunities Are
If I had to identify where I believe the most compelling opportunities in the next six to twelve months will emerge, I would point to three areas.
The first is the repositioned super-prime home. The properties that came to market at ambitious prices during a more confident period, sat longer than expected and have since been adjusted to reflect current conditions. In some cases, these represent exceptional value. The stigma of a price reduction at this level is real but overblown. A home that was overpriced is not a bad home. It was simply introduced to the market at the wrong number.
The second is the off-market opportunity. The discreet transactions that happen quietly, between trusted people, before a listing ever exists. This has always been where the finest deals are made. In a market where motivated sellers and motivated buyers are both present but cautious, the ability to facilitate those conversations to be the trusted intermediary who brings the right parties together is more valuable than ever.
The third is the new build market at this level. The finest new build homes being delivered right now represent a genuinely compelling alternative to the established period market. The quality is exceptional. The specification is extraordinary. And the supply is, by definition, finite. The homes being completed and launched in the next six to twelve months deserve serious attention from buyers who have perhaps dismissed new build in the past.
My Honest View
The market is not without its challenges. Uncertainty remains. The political and economic backdrop is not straightforwardly positive. There are reasons for caution.
But there are also compelling reasons to act.
The buyers I have seen make the best decisions in this market over twenty two years are not the ones who waited for perfect conditions. They are the ones who recognised a window of genuine opportunity and moved through it with conviction.
I believe that window is open right now.
And I believe it will not stay open indefinitely.
TK
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