“2026 Is a Sorting Year. Some Estates Will Pay for Getting It Wrong”

With the start of a new year comes plenty of speculation about the state of the property market. Dan Marsden, Head of Partnerships at Probate.Auction, shares his thoughts and predictions for the year ahead.

2026 is not a recovery year. It is a sorting year; one where excess stock, selective buyers and fragile conviction collide in ways that don’t make headlines but quietly dictate outcomes.

Headlines may crow “stable” but for the vast majority of estate agents out there, 2025 was a challenging year – brutal even for many and time on the market for clients is still stretching, buyer resolve is thinning and fall-through risk creeps increasingly higher.

For probate and legacy property, this is the danger zone, where value is not lost in a crash but eroded through delay, indecision and process failure. The status quo of picking an agent and crossing fingers just won’t cut it in 2026.

The data tells that story clearly. Housing stock now sits at its highest level since 2013, around 21% above the recent five-year average, while unsold properties are sitting on the market for an average close to 180 days. Buyer demand is down year on year and sales agreed are falling faster than new listings; the market looks more like a landfill than a market so it’s tough out there for most.

Although mortgage rates have begun to ease, higher loan-to-value lending and stretched affordability are increasing the likelihood of collapse rather than reducing it, with almost four million households due to refinance onto higher rates over the next three years. This is not a falling market. It is a conviction-poor one.

Probate property is uniquely exposed to these conditions. Empty homes continue to incur a plethora of costs while their condition deteriorates and buyer leverage grows with every additional week on the market. Fall-throughs delay distributions, hold up legacy income and frustrate all involved. In this environment, “sale agreed” has become a comforting milestone rather than a meaningful outcome. Completion is what counts.

The market itself has split decisively in two. Properties priced realistically from the outset are still selling well, while those launched with ‘optimism’ and hope value sit far longer, endure multiple price reductions (sense checks), attract weaker buyers and collapse more frequently, often selling for less than they would have achieved had proper advice been offered at the outset. For estates, this loss rarely arrives as a single event – it seeps away gradually, disguised as patience and prudence.

This is where the default approach becomes the risk. Traditional open-market sales expose probate assets to extended timelines, repeated renegotiation and buyers withdrawing at survey, mortgage or legal stage, leaving beneficiaries and charities with uncertain cashflow and prolonged administration. That risk is structural, not seasonal.

In 2026, speed matters more than sentiment, certainty more than headline price and competitive tension more than marketing gloss. The safest route is the one that finishes, and that is where we focus our support for members navigating probate property sales.

If you need any advice or support or you have a property you’d like us to take a look at, please contact Dan Marsden: [email protected] or 020 3781 1345.

Don’t miss our webinar The Half Billion Legacy Logjam: Why Probate Property Takes So Long to Sell, hosted by Dan & colleague Russell Taylor from Probate.Auction and Andrew Tompson from Berrys.