Sold prices edged up in August while asking prices fell 2%, and the gap is the whole story (5 September 2026)
Two housing market numbers landed within a fortnight of each other and pointed in opposite directions. Both are right. Understanding why they differ is the difference between pricing a Sussex home sensibly this autumn and sitting on it until Christmas.
Nationwide: the average house is £275,465, up 0.2% in the month
Nationwide's index, published on 1 September, puts the average UK house price at £275,465 in August, up 0.2% on July and 1.6% higher than a year earlier. The lender described annual growth as broadly stable.
Nationwide measures its own mortgage approvals, so the figure reflects prices buyers and sellers actually agreed, typically several weeks before the month it is reported in. It is a lagging measure of completed negotiation, not a live read on what sellers are asking. Source: Nationwide house price index, 1 September 2026.
Asking prices fell 2.0% in the same month
Rightmove's August index, which we covered on 22 August, had newly listed asking prices down 2.0% to £364,999, the steepest August fall since 2018, with the South East down 2.1%. Set the two side by side and the contradiction dissolves: sellers coming to market are cutting, and the sales that get agreed are still being agreed at last year's level plus a little.
For a Sussex seller that is a more useful framing than either number alone. It says the market is not falling under you, but the price that gets you an offer is no longer the price your neighbour listed at in the spring. Rightmove has also cut its 2026 forecast for asking prices from growth of 2% to somewhere between zero and minus 2%.
Mortgage rates are the constraint, and the next decision is 17 September
The Bank of England base rate is 3.75%, held since the last meeting, with the next Monetary Policy Committee decision on 17 September. Market averages have not followed the base rate down. As at 4 September the average two-year fixed rate at 75% loan to value was 5.29% and the five-year 5.31%, on Mojo Mortgages data.
Those are whole-of-market averages across all lenders, so best-buy rates at lower loan to value sit meaningfully below them. But the flat shape matters: when two-year and five-year averages are within two basis points of each other, the market is not pricing in much of a fall, and the usual argument for taking the shorter fix and waiting gets weaker. Source: Uswitch, updated 4 September 2026.
What to do with it if you are moving this autumn
If you are selling, price against agreed sales in your postcode rather than against current listings, because listings are the number that fell. If you are buying, the base rate decision on 17 September is worth waiting for only if your offer is not otherwise at risk, since a hold is the more likely outcome and a quarter point would move a typical Sussex mortgage payment by less than most people assume.
Either way, budget for the parts of a move that do not move with the market. Our guide to the cost of moving house in Sussex and the moving budget calculator cover the fees that stay the same whatever the index does.