When is the best time to sell? Without the calendar, the gap is 3%
HMRC counted 117,780 transactions in October 2025 and 80,900 in January 2026. Take the season out and those two months are 3% apart.
open for offer is the pre-market, the market that exists before a property is ever advertised. The quiet season is mostly the calendar. HMRC counted 117,780 UK residential property transactions completed in October 2025 and 80,900 in January 2026, a gap of 31%. Adjust for the season and the same two months are 3% apart.
Every homeowner is told some version of the same thing: wait for spring. The advice is old, it is given confidently, and the number underneath it is a count of completions. HMRC publishes that count every month. It also publishes the same count with the seasonal pattern taken out, and the two tell different stories.
Why is January so much quieter than October?
Mostly, it is not. January looks quiet because of where it sits in the calendar. Conveyancing slows over Christmas, and a month with fewer working days registers fewer completions. Statisticians call that a seasonal effect, and HMRC removes it so the underlying trend can be read. Here is what happens when it does.
| UK residential transactions completed | As HMRC counted them | Adjusted for the season |
|---|---|---|
| October 2025, the busiest of the last twelve months | 117,780 | 99,810 |
| January 2026, the quietest of the last twelve months | 80,900 | 96,640 |
| Gap between the two | 31% | 3% |
Counted as they happened, the busiest and quietest months of the last twelve were 36,880 transactions apart. Once the season is taken out, the whole twelve-month range narrows to 8%, from 103,340 in March 2026 down to 95,220 in August 2026. The market did not collapse in January and did not boom in October. The calendar did most of the moving.
What a completion count is actually telling you
There is a second reason to be careful with this series, and HMRC states it in the release itself: "These statistics represent completions which are on average two to four months after an initial offer is made on a property. They do not necessarily represent the current strength of the property market."
Read that against the calendar. On HMRC's own lag, the sales that completed in January 2026 had an initial offer made between September and November 2025. The ones that completed in October 2025 had an initial offer made over the summer. So the figure a homeowner reaches for when deciding when to sell describes offers other people made a season earlier. Waiting for a strong month in that series is waiting for news that was already two to four months old when it was published.
There is a reason the belief survives. The seasonal pattern in completions is real, large and easy to see, and it looks exactly like a pattern in demand. Most of it is not. HMRC publishes the adjusted series, in its own words, to demonstrate any underlying trends within the data, and in 2026 that trend has stayed inside a single-digit band.
So is there any truth in "spring is better"?
Some. With the season removed the series is not flat: the twelve months to August 2026 still span 8%, and March 2026 sits at the top of them. Spring is a genuinely busier market, by single digits. What it is not is the difference between selling and not selling. A homeowner who waits from autumn to spring has spent two seasons chasing a single-digit difference, guided by a number that was a season old when they read it.
What this changes if you are thinking about selling
Not the month. It changes the order you do things in.
- Stop waiting for a season. With the calendar removed, the distance between the busiest and quietest month of the last year is 8%. The distance between pricing from the right figure and the wrong one is routinely larger than that.
- Use the lag instead of fighting it. If you want to complete in the spring, the offer has to be made in the winter. Spring's sales are a winter decision, and the people making them now are not waiting for March.
- Find out where you stand before you commit to anything. You can get a market estimate for your own home in a couple of minutes, and see what is selling near you, without a board going up outside.
Your own street is not a national series, and it has no season in common with one. Buyers can register interest in your home on its page. The queue on your home's page shows how much interest there is.
The figures, and where they come from
Every number above comes from HMRC's monthly property transactions release of 30 September 2026, which carries provisional data to August 2026. The series counts UK residential property transactions with a value above £40,000, so the cheapest sales are not in it. The latest months are provisional: August 2026 is published as 96,250 counted and 95,220 seasonally adjusted, and HMRC expects figures to settle after about three months. The next release is due on 30 October 2026. These figures were read from the published data table on 17 October 2026.
Common questions
When is the best time of year to sell a house in the UK?
On HMRC's monthly transactions data to August 2026, the seasonal difference is small once the calendar is removed. October 2025 and January 2026 were 31% apart as counted and 3% apart seasonally adjusted, and the whole twelve-month adjusted range was 8%.
Why are house sales always lower in January?
Because January has fewer working days and follows the Christmas conveyancing slowdown, so fewer transactions complete in it. HMRC's seasonally adjusted figure for January 2026 was 96,640, against 80,900 as counted.
Does HMRC transaction data show what the market is doing now?
No. HMRC says these statistics represent completions which are on average two to four months after an initial offer is made on a property, and that they do not necessarily represent the current strength of the property market.