Antony Roberts in the Press – July 2026

Antony Roberts’ experts are often asked for their opinions on various aspects of the housing and rental markets. Below, is a selection of our comments which appeared in the press in July.

Average house prices fell slightly from £278,024 in May to £277,484 in June, according to Nationwide Building Society. Amy Reynolds, head of sales at Antony Roberts told The Guardian: “There is the familiar pre-summer push from families wanting to be settled before the new school year, but the mood is steady and selective rather than booming or stalling.” She explained further in The Independent: “We expect a quieter, price-sensitive summer, with activity firming again in the autumn once buyers have more clarity on rates and the geopolitical noise has died down.”

Meanwhile, the Lloyds house price index showed average property values rose by 0.2 per cent in June. Amy Reynolds told Money Week: “On the ground, the picture is more nuanced than national headlines suggest.”

How do you find a good estate agent to help sell your home who will tell you if your home isn’t worth what you think it is or if it needs to be presented differently? Amy Reynolds told The Times: “A bad [agent] tells you the number you want to hear to win the instruction and goes low on the fee – they then spend the next three months ‘managing you down’ once the market doesn’t respond, by which point you’ve lost the crucial early-listing momentum and the property starts to look stale.”

The Bank of England has voted to hold base rate at 3.75 per cent for the fifth consecutive meeting. Amy Reynolds told Inside Conveyancing: “For the property market, the practical read is that mortgage pricing had already moved ahead of the announcement – several major lenders raised rates last week – so this decision was unlikely to be the trigger for further movement, but the tone of the Monetary Policy report could keep upward pressure on fixed-rate pricing into the autumn.”

The property market may be challenging but deals are being done that are bucking any downward trend. Alex Morrell, sales negotiator at Antony Roberts, told The Times that he was selling a four-bed semi in St Margaret’s where the vendor had lived for 35 years and now wanted to downsize. “We had two offers, at £50,000 and £20,000 over the asking price [£1.4m] but the vendor chose the lower offer as [that buyer] had their sale well under way, while the other had not progressed their sale. The lesson is to get yourself in the best position to secure the right property when it comes up.”

Plane noise is a constant in Richmond, where Amy Reynolds lives, but she told The Times that she wouldn’t live anywhere else and says most buyers feel the same. In Richmond Green, the noisiest area by the river, houses start at £2 million. “If I could buy a townhouse there, that’s exactly where I’d buy it. You accept the planes because you have all this great stuff on your doorstep,” she said.

ends