What 2025 taught us about moving home
That’s the festive season over for another year, and many people are thinking about doing something different in the new year. Whether you’re planning to moving home guide move home or buy your first-time buyer guide first property, now is a good time to think about what you can afford and where you want to live.
The housing market can seem volatile, particularly if you’re inexperienced. So it’s useful to look back at what happened in 2025 for some pointers to what might happen this year.
The online property portal Reallymoving has worked through the data, throwing up some interesting facts that might help.
The busiest moving day of 2025
Quite often, the most popular day to move is the last Friday in August, because the summer holiday period is drawing to a close, the kids are preparing to start their next school term, and it gives a period to settle in before the standard rigours of daily life resume.
However, unusually, 2025 bucked this trend as the last Friday in October (the 31st) was the favourite moving day – but nothing frightening in that! The average number of moves is 5,000 on any day but there were an enormous 24,700 moves on that Friday.
Usually, moving home is precipitated by life events such as marriage, moving jobs, or an expanding family. Reallymoving data shows that the median distance for 2025 was 10 miles, which is down by 2 miles against the figures from 2024.
Where did people move in 2025?
Location is an important factor in buyers’ decision-making. In 2025, the top 5 places to where most people wanted to relocate were:
- Birmingham (3%)
- Manchester (2.5%)
- South-East London (2.3%)
- Bristol (2%)
- Belfast (2.9%)
This shows that city life remains a popular draw for many homebuyers.
First-time buyers still dominated the market
First-time buyers made up 58% of all purchases in 2025, though this was down 1% from 2024 – likely due to the removal of some [LINK: stamp duty guide] stamp duty relief for first-time buyers in April.
When it comes to sorting out a mortgage or other methods of purchasing a home, 19% of the buying population were cash buyers, while an incredible 10% of first-time buyers purchased their first property without a mortgage.
Regional migration patterns
The region with the highest net migration was Yorkshire and The Humber with 32% more people arriving in the area than were leaving.
Correspondingly, the lowest was London, which experienced 62% more people leaving than arriving – reflecting ongoing trends of people seeking more space and affordability outside the capital.
Upsizing and downsizing trends
One of the key reasons given for wanting to move home is to downsize – usually because the family has shrunk with children flying the nest or the current property becoming too much to manage. Those made up 27% of the housing market in 2025, with the South-West seeing the largest transition to smaller properties. This means that a proportion of sellers have unlocked equity in their previous home, too.
Correspondingly, the market was buoyant for those wanting to move somewhere bigger. According to the Reallymoving data:
- Moving from a 1-bedroom home to a 2-bedroom cost an average additional £37,697
- Upgrading from a 3-bedroom to a 4-bedroom cost an extra £178,132
Downgrading can be seen in similar terms in terms of average equity released.
The real cost of moving home
There are so many costs associated with moving home – from the legal costs to removals costs, stamp duty, a home survey and an EPC.
Reallymoving has identified that removals costs (buying and selling concurrently) in England grew by 27% to £17,831 in 2025. First-time buyers fared better in this respect, averaging £2,315 in these costs.
Whatever your plans for your property in the new year, these figures show that the housing market remains buoyant in the face of external economic factors and that there are opportunities to be found depending on where you are planning to buy a home. If you are thinking of buying for the first time, there is help out there, but you are part of a dominant force in the process of purchasing a property.
Value conveyancing for your move
Whatever your plans for 2026, conveyancing costs can quickly add up. At Best Value Conveyancing, we provide fixed-price quotes with transparent disbursements, so you can budget with confidence.
We offer a no completion, no fee guarantee – if your sale or purchase falls through for any reason, including gazumping, you won’t pay our fees.
Call 0800 0387 007 or get an instant quote online.
