Roundup: 30% struggling, and a Budget date of 28 October

If you've been telling yourself you'll decide once things settle down, this week quietly gave you a deadline. The Autumn Budget has a date, and it's 28 October. That's roughly ten weeks to make whatever decision you've been postponing, before a fresh round of tax speculation starts doing your thinking for you.

The rest of the week backed up the same uncomfortable point. Sellers came back to the market in July and buyers didn't follow. Mortgage arrears fell for an eighth straight quarter. And almost a third of everyone paying a rent or a mortgage still calls it difficult. The market is calmer than it was in 2023. It has not become cheaper.

The Budget is 28 October, and Stamp Duty is already off the table

Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey confirmed the Autumn Budget will be held on Wednesday 28 October 2026, days into the job and under the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham (Moneyfactscompare, 3 August 2026). That's earlier than recent autumn Budgets, which compresses the speculation window rather than removing it.

For property, what's been ruled out matters more than what's been promised. The Prime Minister has said Stamp Duty Land Tax won't be changed or scrapped at this Budget, and separately rejected reports that SDLT and council tax would be replaced with a single annual property charge at this stage (Mortgage Solutions, 28 July 2026). A High Value Council Tax Surcharge on homes worth over £2m is still expected from April 2028, which is a different measure on a different timetable.

So if you're mid-purchase and tempted to slow the conveyancing down until 28 October in case a stamp duty cut appears, don't: the person who would have to announce it has already said he won't, and we've run the numbers on why scrapping Stamp Duty keeps getting talked about and never happens.

Sellers came back in July. Buyers stayed exactly where they were.

The RICS UK Residential Market Survey for July, published 13 August 2026, recorded new vendor instructions at a net balance of -4%, a sharp recovery from -23% in June. New buyer enquiries sat at -28%, unchanged on the month, and agreed sales at -30%, also unchanged. The headline price balance was -12% (RICS UK Residential Market Survey, July 2026).

A net balance is simply the share of surveyors reporting a rise minus the share reporting a fall, so -4% means the flow of homes coming to market has almost stopped shrinking. Demand, on the other hand, hasn't budged. More stock arriving against flat enquiries and flat agreed sales is the arithmetic of a buyer's market, and a price balance of -12% tells you surveyors expect soft pricing rather than a collapse.

So if you're viewing this month, that -4% instruction reading is your negotiating position in one number: you now have competing properties to walk away to, and the seller three streets away has the same problem you had in 2024, which means an offer below asking on anything listed longer than six weeks is a reasonable opening rather than a cheeky one.

Santander cut its 90% LTV first-time buyer fix to 4.89%

Lenders repriced hard in the week to 14 August 2026. NatWest cut more than 200 products by up to 24 basis points. Accord trimmed selected residential and buy-to-let deals by up to 18bps. Atom bank reduced its Prime range by 20bps and Near Prime by 10bps. The one worth reading twice came from Santander: a 90% loan-to-value two-year fix for first-time buyers, carrying a £999 fee and £250 cashback, fell 25bps from 5.14% to 4.89% (Mortgage Introducer, week ending 14 August 2026).

That band matters more than the headline best-buy rate, because 90% is where most first-time buyers actually borrow. The best-buy two-year fix is still 4.32% at 60% loan-to-value from first direct with a £490 fee (Moneyfacts, 5 August 2026), and the whole-market average two-year fix was 5.55% (Moneyfacts, 10 August 2026), but neither of those is the number a 10% deposit gets you.

On a £225,000 loan, which is 90% of a £250,000 home, over 25 years on repayment: 5.14% costs £1,334 a month. At 4.89% it's £1,301. That's £33 a month, £394 a year, or £787 across a two-year fix, plus £250 cashback.

Before you chase it, check the fee against the rate. A £999 arrangement fee on a £225,000 loan eats more than two years of that saving on its own if the alternative deal is fee-free at a slightly higher rate.

So if you're a first-time buyer sitting on a 10% deposit, re-quote your mortgage this fortnight rather than relying on a decision in principle from the spring, and run the fee maths first, because the lowest advertised rate frequently isn't the cheapest deal once the arrangement fee is added back.

Mortgage arrears fell for an eighth consecutive quarter

UK Finance published its arrears and possessions data for the second quarter of 2026 on 13 August. Homeowner mortgages in arrears of 2.5% or more of the outstanding balance fell 1% on the quarter to 77,940, equal to 0.89% of all outstanding homeowner mortgages, an eighth consecutive quarterly fall. Buy-to-let arrears fell 6% to 8,390, or 0.44% of buy-to-let mortgages. Possessions dropped further: 1,150 homeowner properties were taken into possession, down 8% on the quarter and 14% on the year, alongside 630 buy-to-let possessions, down 22% (UK Finance, Q2 2026).

This is the quiet counterweight to every crash headline you've read this summer. The 2023 rate shock has now washed through most fixed-rate maturities, and the borrowers who were going to fall over largely haven't. It also kills a hope some buyers are still holding: repossessed stock arriving cheap and in volume.

So if you've been waiting for forced sellers to hand you a discount, that queue isn't forming, and the practical implication is that your bargaining power comes from ordinary sellers with slow chains rather than from anybody's distress.

30% still find the rent or the mortgage difficult to pay

The ONS Opinions and Lifestyle Survey, run from 1 to 26 July 2026, found 30% of adults who pay rent or a mortgage described those payments as very or somewhat difficult to afford. That's well down on the peak of 46% recorded between 28 June and 9 July 2023, but broadly flat against the 35% reported in the same period of 2025 (ONS, July 2026, via Mortgage Solutions, 14 August 2026). Housing was named as an important issue facing the country by 54% of adults.

Read those two figures together and you get the honest state of the market. The acute phase is over. The chronic phase isn't. Roughly three in ten households are still stretched, two years after the worst of the rate shock, which is a far cry from the pre-2022 baseline and a long way from anyone's definition of recovery.

So if you're one of the 30%, the useful move isn't to wait for a September rate cut that three MPC members voted against last time: it's to call your lender before you miss a payment, because the support available while you're up to date is materially wider than what's on offer once arrears are recorded against you.

27.1 weeks from possession claim to actually getting the property back

Ministry of Justice figures published on 13 August 2026 put the median wait from a landlord possession claim to repossession at 27.1 weeks for April to June 2026, down from 27.9 weeks a year earlier (MoJ Mortgage and Landlord Possession Statistics, via Mortgage Solutions, 13 August 2026). Landlord claims are rising while mortgage possession claims fall.

With Section 21 no-fault possession abolished under the Renters' Rights Act 2025, every route to an empty property now runs through the courts, and a court queue of a little over six months is now a standard planning assumption rather than a worst case. That's six months of a tenancy you may not want, on a property you may have already agreed to sell.

So if you're a landlord planning an exit in 2027, work backwards from 27 weeks and start the process far earlier than feels necessary, particularly given the landlord register rolling out from late 2026 makes an unregistered property ineligible for possession proceedings in the first place.

What this means for you

Line the week up and a single theme runs through it. Every measure of distress improved, and every measure of affordability stayed put. Arrears down for an eighth quarter, possessions down 14% on the year, and still 30% of people paying for a roof describe it as difficult. Nothing about that combination rewards waiting.

Frankly, if you're a first-time buyer with a 10% deposit, the maths points toward moving this autumn rather than after the Budget. Sellers are arriving faster than buyers, the 90% loan-to-value band is repricing downward for the first time in months, and the one tax change that would have made waiting rational has been publicly ruled out. Get a fresh decision in principle, price your actual band rather than the best-buy headline, and put the £33 a month a repriced fix saves you straight back into the loan.

If you're an existing homeowner with a fix ending before spring, the pattern from the past fortnight is that lenders are cutting selectively while Bank Rate sits still. Most people who run these numbers end up securing an offer they can hold and improving on it later if rates move, rather than betting on 17 September. Our product transfer against full remortgage comparison sets out where the £600-odd difference actually sits, and why a broker fee can erase it.

And if you're a landlord, the week said two things at once. Your peers are not falling into arrears, so the panic-exit narrative is overdone. But the possession timetable is now 27 weeks and the registration regime lands next year, which means the cost of a badly timed exit has gone up even as the financial pressure has come down. Plan the paperwork now and the sale later.