August is usually the month the property market holds its breath. Families are away, viewings thin out, and everyone waits for September. This year has been different on both counts — the national headlines have been doing something worth explaining properly, and our own summer has been busier than any August I can remember.

The national picture: asking prices are coming down

Rightmove’s August index showed the average price of a newly listed home falling 2.0% in a month, with the annual figure now down 1.0%. That follows a 1.0% monthly fall in July, when the national average asking price stood at £372,359.

The supporting numbers explain why. The average agent had 65 homes on their books in July — close to the highest for that month in over a decade. Properties are taking around 63 days to find a buyer nationally, and agreed sales are running about 6% behind the same point last year.

More homes, slightly fewer buyers, and sellers adjusting their expectations. That’s a market rebalancing, not a market falling over — and the distinction matters, because asking prices are what sellers hope for, not what buyers pay.

What Crawley homes are actually selling for

Land Registry and ONS figures tell a different and more encouraging story locally. The average Crawley home sold for £334,000 in May 2026, up 1.5% from £329,000 a year earlier. That’s ahead of the South East as a whole, which managed 1.2%.

By property type, the spread is wide:

• Detached — £668,000. The top of the market is patient but still moving.
• Semi-detached — £428,000. Up 3.1% on the year, the strongest performer in Crawley by a clear margin.
• Terraced — £343,000. Steady, and the natural first step up from a flat.
• Flats and maisonettes — £212,000. Down 1.5% on the year, the only category in negative territory.

For context, the UK average is £271,000 and the England average £292,000. Crawley continues to sit comfortably above both, which is what you’d expect from a town with Gatwick on the doorstep and two stations into London.

The semi-detached number is the one I’d draw out. Crawley’s neighbourhoods — Pound Hill, Maidenbower, Furnace Green, Southgate — are built substantially from exactly that stock, and it’s outperforming everything else. If you own a three-bedroom semi in Crawley, this is a better market than the national headlines suggest.

So why are asking prices falling while sold prices rise?

Because they measure different things, and the gap between them is where sellers win or lose money.

Asking prices reflect optimism at the moment of listing. Sold prices reflect what someone actually paid. When supply is high, as it is now, buyers have choice — and choice makes them unsentimental. An over-priced home doesn’t get haggled down, it gets ignored. It sits, goes stale, and eventually reduces. By the time it sells, it usually goes for less than it would have achieved with a sensible price on day one.

A correctly priced home in the same market attracts competing interest in the first fortnight and sells close to, or at, the asking figure. That’s the whole reason we average 99% of asking price against a UK average of 97%. It isn’t a negotiating trick. It’s what happens when you price honestly at the start.

In a rising market, over-pricing is a survivable mistake — the market catches up with you. In this market, it isn’t. That’s the single most important thing for any Crawley seller to understand this autumn.

What we’re seeing in our own office

National figures are useful for context, but our own books describe this town rather than the country. Here’s where we’ve got to since the start of June.

We’ve agreed 31 sales, at an average price of £337,435 — a little ahead of the Land Registry’s Crawley average — and we’ve continued to achieve 99% of asking price.

The number I’d point at, though, is 42 days from listing to sale agreed. The national average is 63. That three-week difference isn’t luck and it isn’t a busier phone; it’s what accurate pricing buys you. A home that launches at the right figure gets its competing interest in the first fortnight, while one that launches high spends those weeks being ignored.

Three-bedroom homes have been comfortably our most in-demand property, which lines up precisely with the semi-detached growth in the Land Registry data. If you own one, you’re in the strongest part of this market.

The seasons have been upside down this year. Spring was quieter than we’d normally expect and the summer holidays have been noticeably busier — the reverse of the usual pattern. My reading is that a lot of movers held off through the spring waiting to see what happened to rates, then decided that waiting indefinitely wasn’t a plan.

On the lettings side, we’ve completed 63 lets since June, with an average of 23 applicants per property and 25 days to let. Demand is not the problem for landlords in Crawley — compliance is.

One honest note: probate instructions have been quieter than usual this quarter, after an unusually busy spring. These things move in waves and I’d read nothing into it beyond ordinary variation.

The lettings market: the Renters’ Rights Act at 100 days

The Act came into force on 1 May 2026, so we’re now over three months in and the dust has largely settled. To recap what changed:

• Fixed-term tenancies are gone. Every new tenancy is periodic from the start.
• Section 21 no-fault evictions are abolished. Possession now requires a Section 8 ground. The deadline for court claims on Section 21 notices served before the switchover passed on 1 August, so that transitional chapter is now closed.
• Rent increases once a year, by Section 13 notice, and challengeable by the tenant if above market rate.
• Rental bidding wars are banned, and you must advertise an asking rent.
• Discrimination against families or benefit recipients is unlawful.

The thing to prepare for now is the Private Rented Sector database, which begins rolling out regionally from late 2026. Every landlord will need to register and log compliance information. The mandatory landlord ombudsman follows in 2028.

If you’re a fully managed landlord with us, none of this lands on your desk — we’ll handle registration on your behalf as the regional rollout reaches West Sussex. If you self-manage, now is the time to gather your certificates and licences into one place, because the database will ask for them.

On rents themselves, the picture has calmed considerably. Average rents in England reached £1,446 in June 2026, up 3.4% year-on-year — a long way from the double-digit rises of 2023 and 2024. Demand in Crawley remains firm, as our 23-applicants-per-property figure shows, but landlords setting rents should be pricing against a market that is normalising rather than sprinting.

Mortgages: rates are holding steady

The Bank of England held the base rate at 3.75% on 30 July, with the next decision due on 17 September. Stability is doing more good than a cut would — buyers can plan, lenders can price, and the panic of the 2023 period feels a long way off.

Put stable rates together with the highest supply in a decade and softening asking prices, and this is the best-choice market buyers have had in years. If you’ve been waiting, the waiting is largely over.

If you’re thinking of moving this autumn

If you’re selling, price it right on day one and be ready to launch in early September — the autumn window realistically closes in early November for anyone wanting to complete before Christmas. Book a free valuation and we’ll show you the comparable evidence rather than just a number.

If you’re a landlord, get your compliance paperwork in order ahead of the PRS database. Our fully managed lettings service covers the new obligations as standard, and if you run an HMO, our HMO management team handles licensing and Article 4 as a matter of routine.

If you’re buying, you have more choice and more negotiating room than at any point in recent years. Register with us and we’ll tell you about the right property before it reaches the portals.

If you’re an executor handling a property as part of an estate, our probate valuation service is RICS-aligned and HMRC-compliant, and we handle these quietly and without pressure.

As always, if you’d like to talk through your own situation, call us on 01293 529999 or come into the office at 44 High Street. No obligation and no sales pitch — just a straight conversation about what the market means for you.

— Adam