Brokers cut up on 2026 outlook as confidence gaps emerge

Editorial Team
4 Min Read


Simon Leadbetter

The ultimate instalment of The Voice of the Agent 2025 has been revealed, highlighting a transparent divide in confidence between gross sales and lettings professionals because the property sector seems to be forward to 2026 amid a cautious Finances and modest progress forecasts.

Half 5 of the report reveals that 60% of sales-focused brokers count on directions to rise in 2026, with almost a 3rd describing themselves as very assured. By comparability, 31% of lettings-focused brokers share that view, whereas 1 / 4 say they’re pessimistic in regards to the 12 months forward.

The analysis, which pulls on a whole bunch of survey responses from shoppers and trade professionals, gives probably the most detailed evaluation but of how the November Finances and financial outlook are shaping agent expectations.

With GDP progress forecast at round 1%, inflation remaining above goal at 2.5%, and mortgage charges drifting down solely slowly, the report characterises 2026 as “a 12 months of cautious rebalancing” reasonably than dramatic restoration.

Maybe most importantly, the evaluation reveals that confidence isn’t evenly distributed throughout the market. Among the many top-performing 5% of businesses, 80% categorical confidence about progress – with nearly no uncertainty of their outlook. The report concludes that “confidence follows functionality” and that main businesses “don’t hope for progress, they engineer it.”

Actual property professionals additionally show notably completely different views from most of the people on key political and financial questions. A placing 81% imagine Labour has not stored its promise on revenue tax, VAT and Nationwide Insurance coverage – considerably greater than the 64% nationally. In the meantime, 66% attribute the Finances’s monetary measures primarily to Labour’s selections reasonably than inherited constraints.

The report gives detailed evaluation of the November 2025 Finances’s impression on property, together with the mansion tax on properties above £2m, elevated rental revenue taxation, and bold housebuilding targets. It additionally examines client confidence traits, displaying that while public sentiment fluctuates dramatically, home costs proceed their regular upward trajectory – a “disjunction that issues” for brokers navigating consumer expectations.

Simon Leadbetter, founding father of The Voice of the Agent and We Are Unchained, commented: “The Voice of the Agent has developed from a single annual report into the property sector’s most complete intelligence system. The hundreds of survey responses we’ve acquired in 2025, mixed with the sold-out success of our Bletchley Park convention, show the trade’s urge for food for rigorous, evidence-based perception reasonably than hypothesis.

“As we transition to month-to-month reporting in 2026, we’re responding to an trade that strikes sooner than ever – the place choices can’t anticipate annual critiques. Our dedication stays unchanged: to present brokers readability in a world that not often provides it.”

The 2026 programme will ship twelve themed month-to-month editions masking gross sales, lettings, portals, advertising and marketing, AI, regulation, surveying, conveyancing, politics, psychological well being and market outlook.

Half 5 of The Voice of the Agent 2025 is on the market to obtain right here.

 



Share This Article