For many UK households, 2025 marked the beginning of the end of the mortgage rate shocks of the previous year. And while that did not mean a return to cheap borrowing, the easing of interest rates was clearly visible over the course of the year.

The Bank of England’s base rate, a key determinant of mortgage pricing, fell from 4.75% in January 2025 to 3.75% in December.

And mortgage rates followed suit. For a typical first-time buyer (a two-year fixed deal with a 10% deposit) rates fell from around 5.35% in January to about 4.49% by the end of the year.

House prices, meanwhile, did not surge, with annual growth slowed to around 0.7%. Overall, 2025 looked more like a period of cooling and stabilisation – certainly one of the calmer years for the housing market in the past decade.

And that calmness could be about to continue. Most forecasts suggest that the Bank of England base rate........

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