Having waited for the Budget for what seemed like an eternity — in one sense it came early! The Office for Budget Responsibility report, which is usually made available a few hours after the chancellor’s Budget announcement, was published by accident 35 minutes beforehand.

The fallout from what was soon branded as ‘Budget chaos’ was arguably fitting for such a turbulent year.

As Shaw Financial Services broker Lewis Shaw suggests, if 2025 were to be given a sub-title, it would surely be, ‘Manufactured chaos, predictable consequences.’

The government needs to be clear in its plans for energy efficiency standards, and to ensure a more reasonable timeframe

Shaw says: “The government kicked things off by letting the stamp duty relief expire in April for first-time buyers, creating a six-month frenzy of panic buying as if it was the last toilet roll in March 2020.

“Conveyancers aged about 15 years, and then April arrived and transactions fell off a cliff.

“Out came the doomsters, saying that the housing market was finished, which I think was the eighth time I’d heard this in the past couple of years.

“To be fair, transactions did drop 64% in a single month.”

Shaw adds: “Nobody could have predicted this — apart from literally everyone who’s ever seen a stamp duty deadline before.

“Meanwhile, mortgage rates spent the year doing their best impression of a toddler on a sugar rush. Up in January, down after Trump’s tariffs spooked the markets (cheers, Donald, I think?), back up around the Budget, down again when lenders remembered they quite liked making money. If you managed to time your purchase perfectly through all this, congratulations — you should probably take up day trading.”

If 2025 was the year when the market steadied itself, 2026 has the potential to be the year when it starts to move forward again

Boon Brokers managing director Gerard Boon points to the fact that mortgage interest rates have continued to fall in correlation with cuts to the Bank of England’s base rate.

This has raised demand for mortgage borrowing, which is good for business. And house prices have broadly remained resilient across the country.

Boon is also encouraged that a number of lenders have increased their income multipliers for first-time buyers. However, he highlights some inescapable negatives.

“I don’t believe it’s controversial to state that there is significant economic uncertainty across all industries in the UK.

“This has brought some trepidation from clients looking to borrow mortgage debt, especially in the south and coastal areas of the country that have seen weak growth.”

Boon continues: “Many vendors in these areas have struggled to sell their property at their asking price.

Some form of Help to Buy-style scheme would give first-time buyers a more reliable route onto the ladder

“This segues nicely into the second negative for the industry this year, which has been unpredictable valuations from lenders.

“For the remortgage market especially, valuations have held great importance for borrowers as many homeowners will be switching to a higher interest rate than their former deal.

“Therefore, it’s been a great shame to see so many down-valuations from surveyors this year, which is likely to be derived from uncertainty rather than genuine property values. This has left many homeowners exposed to higher loan-to-value brackets on their property, and a higher interest rate on their mortgage as a direct result.”

Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association executive director Kate Davies agrees that 2025 has brought its share of headwinds.

“Planning consents continued to fall, putting further pressure on an already stretched supply pipeline,” she says.

“Landlords faced yet another tightening of the screw, this time via higher income tax on rental earnings, compounded by the rollout of the Renters’ Rights Act, which many fear will increase costs and reduce viability.”

It’s been a great shame to see so many down-valuations from surveyors this year

Staying with the private rented sector, National Residential Landlords Association chief executive Ben Beadle insists that 2026 needs to be, above all things, a year of stability.

“The government must swiftly publish all the regulations needed to enable tenancy agreements across England to be updated in time for the systems replacing Section 21, which will be coming into force in May,” says Beadle.

“This isn’t going to happen overnight, and the current plans to publish the regulations in January will not give the sector anywhere near enough time to prepare.”

Beadle adds: “The government also needs to be clear in its plans for energy efficiency standards for the sector, and to ensure a more reasonable timeframe to deliver what it has proposed.

“The lack of financial support for the investments required, coupled with the chronic shortage of tradespeople to deliver energy efficiency works, makes what ministers have suggested completely unfeasible.”

Mortgage rates spent the year doing their best impression of a toddler on a sugar rush

Looking ahead to 2026, Davies would welcome a more meaningful improvement in affordability, whether driven by lower rates, rising real incomes or continued regulatory flexibility, which would help unlock pent-up demand.

“Some form of Help to Buy-style scheme would give first-time buyers a more reliable route onto the ladder, although the government shows no sign of considering any such support,” says Davies.

“And, above all, we are hoping for a period of genuine policy stability — a ‘Hands off our housing market’ approach that avoids disruptive tax interventions and gives buyers, sellers and lenders the space to plan confidently.

“If 2025 was the year when the market steadied itself, 2026 has the potential to be the year when it starts to move forward again.”

This article featured in the December 2025/January 2026 edition of Mortgage Strategy.

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