The end of house hopping?

• Just 5% of sellers this year in England & Wales have owned their home for less than three years, the lowest share on record and down from 15% in 2006.
• Meanwhile, the share selling within five years has halved over the last 20 years, from 29% in 2006 to 14% in 2026.
• High moving costs are encouraging households to stay put, with the typical mover in England spending £5,950 on stamp duty this year, rising to £23,000 in London.
• Weaker price growth is creating another barrier, with one in five sellers who had owned for five years or less selling at a loss in 2026.
• London shows the sharpest strain: just 9% of 2026 sellers had bought within the last five years, while an estimated 21% of homes are now worth less than their owner paid, compared with 7.9% nationally.

Aneisha Beveridge, Research Director at Connells Group, said:

“Homeowners are increasingly finding that moving no longer pays. High stamp duty costs, higher mortgage rates and weaker price growth have created a cocktail of reasons why many households are staying put for longer than they otherwise would. The result is that homeowners are less likely to make small, incremental steps up or down the housing ladder; when they do move, it increasingly needs to be a bigger, longer-term decision.

“This matters because a healthy housing market depends on people being able to move when their lives change. Whether it's having children, changing jobs or downsizing later in life, households need the flexibility to adapt their housing to their circumstances. Instead, we're seeing growing financial barriers make those moves harder to justify.

“The fall in turnover is happening across the country. Homeowners are moving less often than they were 20 years ago in every region, with the biggest drop-offs typically in London and the South, where transaction costs bite hardest. Lower churn doesn't just weigh on housing transactions, it reduces the efficiency with which the existing housing stock is used and can act as a drag on wider economic growth and productivity. Our analysis suggests that if homeowners were moving as frequently as they were in 2006, we would see around 439,000 additional housing transactions each year.”

New analysis from Connells Group using Land Registry data shows that homeowners are moving less frequently than they used to, with short-term moves now at their lowest level on record.

So far this year, just 5% of sellers have owned their home for less than three years, down from 8% in 2016 and 15% in 2006, when house prices were rising more quickly and the financial barriers to moving were lower.

Some short-term sales will always be needs-based, triggered by work, family or relationship changes. But the longer-term fall in moves within three years of buying suggests even these life-event transactions are becoming harder to absorb, while more discretionary moves have fallen further out of the picture.

In 2026, just 14% of sellers had owned for less than five years, down from 29% in 2006 — a period that has historically been a more typical holding period for first-time buyers looking to trade up as their earnings and equity grew.

The drop-off is visible over longer ownership periods too, with the share of homes sold within 10 years falling from 47% in 2006 to 32% in 2026. The average seller this year had owned their home for 12.2 years, compared with 9.2 years a decade ago.

WHY FEWER HOUSEHOLDS ARE MOVING

A big part of the shift is that moving has become a decision that households have had to weigh up more carefully. High stamp duty costs mean that, for many owners, it can make more financial sense to future-proof their current home - by extending, improving or adapting it - than to absorb the cost of another move.

The typical mover in England spent £5,950 on stamp duty this year, rising to £23,000 in London — before legal, estate agency, mortgage or removal costs are taken into account. In the capital, that is broadly equivalent to around half a year’s typical full-time salary.

Higher mortgage rates have added another layer of caution, with the move from ultra-low rates not only reducing affordability but also leaving some households waiting to see whether borrowing costs come down before making their next step.

At the same time, weaker price growth has left recent buyers with less equity to carry into their next purchase, while the prospect of selling for less than they paid creates both a psychological barrier and a financial one.

WEAKER PRICE GROWTH IS STARTING TO BITE

For much of the early 2000s and late 2010s, strong house price growth helped homeowners overcome the financial drag of moving. A rising market meant that even those who sold after only a few years often walked away with enough equity to more than cover transaction costs and help fund their next purchase.

That cushion has become thinner. In 2026, 20% of sellers in England & Wales who had owned their home for five years or less sold at a loss, while 23% of those selling within three years did so. This is up from 10% and 6% respectively in 2006. But this data only captures the households who did go on to sell. There will also be other owners who would like to move, but are unwilling to do so if it means accepting less than they paid.

This is felt most acutely in prime and higher-value markets, where prices in some areas remain below their previous peak. These are also the markets carrying the heaviest stamp duty burden, where more expensive homes have been most exposed to tax increases over the last decade. Around 32% of homes bought for £1m or more are now worth less than their purchase price, compared with 7.5% of homes bought below £1m. For these owners, the barrier to moving is twofold: higher transaction costs make the next purchase more expensive, while weaker price growth can mean less equity to carry forward — or the difficult decision to crystallise a loss.

LONDON SHOWS THE BIGGEST SHIFT

London has seen the most pronounced change in moving patterns. Just 9% of sellers in the capital this year had bought within the last five years, the lowest share of any region and down from 27% in 2006. The share selling within 10 years has also fallen sharply as high transaction costs and weaker price growth have combined to slow the rate of churn.

The capital is the clearest example of how these pressures interact. Stamp duty bills are typically higher because prices are higher, while price growth has been weaker over the last five to 10 years than in many other parts of the country. An estimated 21% of London homes are now worth less than their owner paid, compared with 7.9% nationally, before any improvements are taken into account. That helps explain why the loss-making figures among completed sellers may understate the scale of the issue: some households who would like to move may be choosing not to if doing so means crystallising a loss.