# The UK housing market – warming up

_UK housing market showing real momentum. Strong updates from major UK housebuilders, plus a sharp rise in mortgage lending._

Neil Woodford · 2 May 2025 · 1 min read

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This week, Persimmon, one of the UK’s largest volume housebuilders, provided an update on current trading in its annual AGM statement. In a generally upbeat commentary, the company announced that its current forward sales were up 12% on the same period last year, whilst its private sales (excluding bulk sales) were up 17%. Its private average selling price was up 4% at £293,300. Overall, the company is trading in line with the board’s expectations, but importantly, customer interest remains strong across the country.

Interestingly, and not surprisingly in my opinion, the business also states that current “macroeconomic uncertainty” has had no impact on the business or its supply chain. Once again, this highlights how wrong the market was in early April when the share price fell 11% on the back of Trump’s tariff announcement.

This is an encouraging statement because it clearly points to an improving trading environment ahead of what I expect will be a fairly rapid decline in base rates, a process which will kick off next week.

Another large UK housebuilder, Taylor Wimpey, has also released its Q1 trading statement this week. Like Persimmon, TW has reported that the business is performing in line with management’s expectations and that the Spring selling season is doing likewise. Although the commentary is relatively cautious, there is no indication that the tariff issue is affecting the business in any way.

On top of these company-specific statements, some new data has also been released on the mortgage market. This data set shows that total mortgage lending increased significantly in the first quarter of 2025, effectively doubling to £20bn after a prolonged period of weakness following the huge increases in interest rates in 2022 and 2023. Mortgage approvals also increased, as did housing transactions, which were up significantly in March ahead of the rise in stamp duty. This huge increase shown in the chart below probably means that transactions will fall back in April and May, but the underlying backdrop for the housing market is clearly improving significantly.