30 April 2026
If you are covering the latest property transaction data and how the Bank of England interest rate decision might impact mortgages, please see the following comment from Ian Futcher, financial planner at Quilter:
The housing market is showing early signs of stabilisation, but the detail in the March data underlines just how distorted the backdrop still is. Residential transactions came in at 104,070 on a seasonally adjusted basis, up just 1% on February and the strongest monthly reading since March 2025.
That modest uptick points to activity finding a floor, but it does not signal a meaningful recovery in demand. And crucially, these figures are backward-looking.
With completions typically lagging initial offers by two to four months, they reflect decisions made before the most recent moves in rates and market sentiment. That makes the Bank of England decision later today far more relevant for the direction of travel from here.
Markets are firmly expecting a hold, but that should not be mistaken for stability. The Iran conflict has become the key external variable, through its potential to keep energy prices elevated and delay the path back to target inflation.
That has a direct bearing on housing. For borrowers, a hold means no immediate change in monthly repayments for those on tracker or standard variable rates. However, the real influence is through expectations.
Swap rates have eased from the volatility seen at the outbreak of war and that has started to feed into mortgage pricing. Lenders are already responding, becoming more competitive to stimulate activity in what remains a soft market.
But the improvement is fragile. What matters most from today is the Bank’s guidance. If policymakers treat the geopolitical backdrop as a risk to monitor rather than a reason to tighten further, that should help anchor expectations that there is no imminent hike. That would support a gradual improvement in mortgage pricing and, in time, transaction volumes. Anything that suggests a hike in the future is likely to feed back into higher swap rates and therefore higher mortgage pricing.
