Everyone's reading the twelve-year stock high as bad news. I'd read it the other way.
Rightmove's August 2026 index shows average new seller asking prices down 2.0% to £364,999, with available stock at a twelve-year high for the time of year. House of Marque reads that stock as unsold overhang rather than fresh supply, which weakens the competition facing a well-marketed property.
Rightmove's August House Price Index landed this morning, 17 August. I'm sure each month you read what's going on in the market. But have you ever let the data inform your strategy when it comes to marketing? If not, then this one's for you.
What this month's index told us
Let's start with the data itself. The main takeaways according to Rightmove:
Average new seller asking price down 2% to £364,999
Biggest August fall since 2018, against a ten year August average of 1.3%
Largest yearly fall in prices since December 2023
Twelve year high for available homes for sale
Buyer demand up 5% versus July, but still 10% down on 2025
Forecast cut from +2% to between 0% and -2%
Everyone's led with the same line today. I don't think it's right.
"Twelve-year high in stock, buyers have never had more choice, tough autumn for sellers."
I don't think that's what the number says.
Stock at a twelve-year high in August, with sellers cutting prices harder than at any August since 2018, doesn't sound like a market flooded with fresh listings to me. It sounds like a market clogged with things that haven't sold. Spring stock still sitting there in the summer, and probably into the autumn.
And we've got two other bits of evidence pointing the same way. Zoopla reckons four in five flats fail to sell within six months. Octane Capital found a quarter of new build listings have been on the market over three months, and 13% for more than six.
So the buyer with more choice than at any point since 2014 is largely choosing between properties that other buyers have already looked at and passed on.
Which changes the conversation around the doom and gloom being portrayed. If your seller is priced sensibly and marketed properly, this is the weakest field of competition they'll face all year. Better than the spring, when everything alongside them was fresh, keen and photographed last week. And better than the autumn market, with motivated stock coming to market ahead of a 2027 move.
What the HPI doesn't tell you
It's always worth remembering that this index measures asking prices on property coming to market. Not achieved prices. The gap between those two is what matters most, and nothing in here tells you what's happening with it on your patch.
It's also a national figure. The north of England is up 1.5% annually while the south is down 1.8%, London's down 3.1%, and inside London it runs from Haringey at +5.7% to Wandsworth at -5.8%. Whatever the headline says, it isn't describing your market, so don't get too bogged down in the number.
And we know it's a snapshot in time rather than a mechanism. The stock level tells you how much is sitting there. It can't tell you whether that's because more arrived or because less left, which is the real question that matters.
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Those first two are the ones we'd start with, and they're the ones agents ask us to build rather than describe. We put the plan together, then we run it alongside you, and we take one retained client per patch, so the launch sequence we build for you isn't being run by whoever you're competing with next month.
What we're telling clients this week
The conversations we have at House of Marque rarely centre on the retainer itself. It's what added value we can bring around the actual business. So with each HPI and each new bit of data, we try to turn it into something you can actually go and do.
Based on this month's data, three things I'd be giving a go.
1. Launch to your own database before the portal, not after it. If stock is at a twelve-year high, going straight to Rightmove means landing in a feed alongside everything else in the area. Going to your registered buyers 48 hours earlier means landing in an inbox alongside nothing. Same property, completely different competitive set. Email and SMS to matched buyers, framed as early access before it goes live, then the portal listing on day three. Most agents have the list and use it as an afterthought, or it's just part of another automation you've set and left in the CRM.
2. Move budget from finding buyers to winning instructions. In a market with this much stock, buyers aren't the scarce thing. Sellable instructions are. So the spend should shift towards seller-facing visibility, and the asset that actually wins those instructions is evidence that you sell in a crowded market. Not sold boards, which prove you listed something. Days to offer, fall-through rate, percentage of asking achieved. All these data points are available to you, you just need to know how to turn them into marketing messages.
3. Rewrite the description before you touch the price. When choice is this wide, the copy and the images are doing the filtering long before the viewing. Most listing descriptions read like they were assembled from ChatGPT or a basic list of features, because, let's face it, they were. A property that's had a 2% reduction and still has the same three lines about the "surprisingly spacious lounge" hasn't changed at all in the only place the buyer is looking.
H2: What you can do on your own this week
Data is everything, and data driven marketing is more powerful than it's ever been. It generally costs you nothing.
So if you're at a loose end this week, go into your CRM and work out your average days from listing to offer accepted over the last twelve months. Then the percentage of asking price you achieved. Both numbers should already be in there.
Almost no agent I've met in the last few weeks can quote either off the top of their head, which I do find remarkable given they're the two most persuasive things you own in a market like this one. A potential seller choosing between three agents with identical fees and identical photographs will pick the one who can say, and evidence, "we agree sales in an average of 34 days and at 97% of asking" every single time. Not "we've got the most stock".
Get the numbers, put them in your next valuation pack, and you've done more for your instruction rate this month than any price reduction will.
If somebody in your team already handles the marketing and it's the consistency that slips rather than the intent, that's what the Marque Club is for. Unlimited access to Lucy or me, driving the plan through your own people, nothing outsourced.
Common questions
Why is there so much property for sale at the moment?
Available stock is at a twelve-year high for the time of year. Some of that is normal August listing activity, but with asking prices being cut harder than at any August since 2018, and separate research showing four in five flats and a quarter of new build listings sitting for months, a significant share is likely to be unsold stock carried over rather than new supply.
Is a high-stock market bad for sellers?
Not necessarily. It depends on the quality of the competition rather than the quantity. If most available stock has been on the market for months without selling, a realistically priced and well-marketed property faces a weaker field than it would in a busier spring market where everything nearby is newly listed.
What should estate agents do when there's more competition for buyers?
Reduce the competition rather than the price. Launching to a matched database of registered buyers before the portal listing goes live puts the property in front of buyers without the surrounding choice. Beyond that, shift marketing towards winning instructions and towards evidence you sell in a crowded market, such as days to offer and percentage of asking achieved.
Should you cut the price or improve the marketing first?
Improve the marketing first, because a price cut does not change anything the buyer sees other than the number. Listing copy, photography and video are doing the filtering before a viewing is ever booked, and a property with 2% off and an unchanged description has not actually changed.
The short version
Twelve-year-high stock is being reported as a problem for sellers. I'd argue it's mostly a pile of other people's mistakes, and that a well-marketed home stands out against it more easily than it would against a fresh spring market.
Whether that's true on your patch depends entirely on how old the stock around you is, which is a question the national index can't answer and your own board can.
If you want to know how you actually stack up against the stock you're competing with, that's what the Marketing Audit and Health Check is for. £495 plus VAT, credited back in full against your first month if you go on to retain us within 90 days. We'll tell you what's wrong before you commit to anything, and we're better at this than most people you've paid before. No spam. No automated phone system. Just us.
Written by Adam Graver, Co-founder, House of Marque
Adam has spent a decade running marketing for property businesses, most of it inside a national property network across multiple brands and hundreds of offices, finishing as Head of Marketing for one of the largest property groups in the country. He works across search and AI visibility, email, CRM, and the legislation governing what property businesses are allowed to say.
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