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Homes England delivers 42,433 starts and 40,332 completions in 2025/26 as MHCLG unveils homebuying reform package

Week ending 25 June 2026 · published 25 June 2026

Homes England 2025/26 outturn

Homes England published its 2025/26 housebuilding statistics on 25 June, reporting 42,433 housing starts on site and 40,332 completions between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026. Starts rose 11 per cent year-on-year and completions 9 per cent. Affordable homes accounted for 32,243 of completions, 80 per cent of the total and up 14 per cent year-on-year. Within affordable tenure, social rent completions rose 65 per cent to 9,381 and intermediate affordable homes rose 13 per cent to 13,388; affordable rent completions fell 12 per cent to 9,460. The Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme 2016 to 2021 closed having delivered 135,331 affordable homes over its lifetime against a 130,000 target.

House prices and mortgage rates

No major house price index published a new reading in the week to 25 June. The most recent figures remain Halifax's May 2026 reading of 298,806 pounds (plus 0.5 per cent year-on-year), Nationwide's May reading (plus 1.7 per cent year-on-year) and the Office for National Statistics House Price Index for April 2026 (plus 3.8 per cent year-on-year). The next Halifax release is due on Tuesday 7 July 2026 and the next ONS House Price Index on 22 July 2026.

On borrowing costs, the Bank of England's Money and Credit release for April 2026, published on 2 June, recorded the effective interest rate on newly drawn mortgages rising to 4.08 per cent from 4.03 per cent in March, while the average rate on the outstanding stock of mortgages edged down to 3.92 per cent. Mortgage approvals for house purchase rose to 65,945 in April, up 9 per cent on a year earlier and 3 per cent on March, while net mortgage borrowing fell to 4.4 billion pounds from 6.8 billion pounds. The financial data provider Moneyfacts recorded the average advertised two-year fixed rate at 5.65 per cent and the five-year average at 5.61 per cent as of 5 June.

Bank Rate and the June MPC vote

The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee voted 7 to 2 on 18 June to maintain Bank Rate at 3.75 per cent. Andrew Bailey, Sarah Breeden, Swati Dhingra, Clare Lombardelli, Catherine L Mann, Dave Ramsden and Alan Taylor voted to hold; Megan Greene and Huw Pill voted to raise Bank Rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4 per cent, citing concerns about second-round inflation effects. Twelve-month CPI inflation was 2.8 per cent in May 2026, unchanged from April and down from 3.3 per cent in March, against the Bank's 2.0 per cent target. The next MPC decision is scheduled for 17 September 2026.

Homebuying reform and rental regulation

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government unveiled a homebuying reform package on 19 June. Sellers and estate agents will be required to provide key information upfront in sales packs at listing — covering home condition, leasehold costs and chain status — alongside earlier binding agreements, a Code of Practice for estate agents, digital property logbooks, and government-backed digital identity checks and AI-assisted conveyancing. The government claims the reforms will cut average purchase times by four weeks and save first-time buyers an average of 650 pounds, against a current average purchase of around 120 days and a one-in-three fall-through rate. The Renters' Rights Act took a further step into force on 22 June when councils in England gained the power to issue fines of up to 7,000 pounds to landlords who fail to fix serious Category 1 hazards, with an estimated 10 per cent of private rented homes affected. A new Housing Health and Safety Rating System, the first major update in twenty years, came into force on 23 June 2026.

Rents

The ONS Price Index of Private Rents for the 12 months to May 2026, released on 17 June, recorded an average UK monthly private rent of 1,383 pounds, up 3.3 per cent year-on-year and slowing from 3.5 per cent in the prior reading. Scotland recorded the lowest annual rate at plus 1.0 per cent, the lowest in almost a decade. The next release is scheduled for 22 July 2026.

Sources

We report what the data shows — no forecasts, no investment advice. For local detail, see house prices by area and the monthly market report.