Hamptons has reported that the share of new homes sold off-plan fell from 36% in 2024 to 33% in 2025, reaching the lowest proportion since 2013.
The agency’s annual off-plan sales index draws on both Connells Group new homes data and Land Registry completions for England & Wales.
It says that the downward trend can be explained by the loss of buy-to-let investors – traditionally the largest buyers of off-plan homes from the market – and by the shift away from building apartments towards houses, which are more likely to be sold when ready to move into.
Hamptons research saw the share of new homes sold off-plan peaking in 2016, when 49% of sales were secured before a property was built.
Between 2016 and 2025, London (-21%), the South West (-21%) and the South East (-20%) recorded the sharpest percentage point fall in off-plan sales. These declines have been exacerbated by the increase in the second home stamp duty surcharge from 3% to 5% in late 2024, which further dampened demand from investors in the south.
Flats continue to be more likely than any other type of new home to be sold off-plan, reflecting their popularity with investors and first-time buyers, who are less constrained by timescales and housing chains.
In 2025, the data shows that 55% of apartments in England & Wales were sold before construction was completed, with the highest regional share recorded in the North West (69%) driven by strong and sustained investor appetite. In London, 65% of flats were sold off-plan last year.
At a local level, 94% of new apartments sold in Oldham last year were bought before completion, the highest share of any local authority in England & Wales. Wolverhampton (86%) and Salford (81%) also recorded particularly high levels of off-plan flat sales.
By contrast, off-plan house sales became less common. Last year, 40% of terraced homes, 29% of semis and just 21% of detached houses were sold before being built. Yorkshire & the Humber recorded the highest share of houses sold off-plan (29%), while London was the only region where fewer than one in five houses were sold off-plan (15%).
Although the share of off-plan sales declined across all property types in 2025 compared to both 2024 and 2016, apartments recorded by far the largest fall, the research shows. At the same time, there has been a marked change in the mix of homes being built – flats accounted for a record 54% of new homes sold back in 2007, a share which had fallen to 38% by 2016 and to just 22% by 2025.
Furthermore, the report suggested that the move towards lower-density, house-led development is likely to make it harder for the government to significantly ramp up housing delivery, with housebuilders increasingly focused on protecting margins, which has favoured faster-selling suburban schemes. By contrast, profits on slower-selling, high-density sites have been eroded, or in some cases, wiped out entirely by rising finance costs. As a result, flats now make up a much smaller share of off-plan sales.
In 2025, just 38% of new homes sold before completion were flats, down from 55% in 2016. 2017 was the last year in which flats accounted for at least half of all off-plan sales.
The report says: “In a higher inflation, higher interest rate world, off-plan sales have rarely been more valuable. The cash they generate allows housebuilders to pay down expensive development finance earlier and help offset the substantial upfront costs of materials and labour. Many of the materials needed to build new homes are highly energy-intensive, meaning their costs have risen far faster than wider inflation.
“The 16-percentage point fall in off-plan sales since their 2016 peak has materially increased financing costs for housebuilders. With a greater share of homes now sold after completion, developers are typically carrying development finance for much longer than they did a decade ago.”
Hamptons has calculated that housebuilders in England & Wales incurred an estimated £264.5m in additional financing costs last year compared with 10 years ago, equating to £3,125 per new home sold in 2025, up from £2,934 in 2024, reducing margins, particularly on slower-selling sites.
As well as higher interest rates, further pressure to financing costs can be explained by developers once relying on a surge of Help to Buy-supported sales around completion, while finding buyers for completed homes now takes longer.
