Most active property markets in 2025 revealed
Scotland and Yorkshire home to UK’s most active property markets in 2025
The latest research from The Property DriveBuy reveals that Scotland and Yorkshire have been home to the UK’s most active housing markets in 2025, with Birmingham, Somerset, Cornwall and Buckinghamshire also ranking within the top 10.
The Property DriveBuy has analysed the latest Government figures on residential sales volume and found that so far this year, the UK has seen a total of 504,180 properties sold*, equating to a monthly average of 63,023 sales.
On a regional level, the South East has been the nation’s most active homebuying hotspot, with a total of 71,060 transactions equal to an average of 8,883 per month. The North West has seen 53,662 sales, followed by the East of England (48,408), South West (46,823), London (46,424), Yorkshire & Humber (39,935), West Midlands (38,166), East Midlands (37,464), and North East (19,895).
However, on a local authority level, the UK’s most active markets are largely located in two places – Scotland and Yorkshire.
The City of Edinburgh has seen the highest number of sales so far this year, totalling 7,351, or an average of 919 per month. And in a close second we find the City of Glasgow with 7,095 sales.
This is followed by two Yorkshire locations. In North Yorkshire, there have been a total of 5,466 transactions, while in Leeds the total comes to 5,451.
Birmingham rounds off the top five homebuyer hotspots for 2025 so far, with 5,422 sales, while Somerset (4,706), Cornwall (4,553), Fife (4,492), Buckinghamshire (4,295), and South Lanarkshire (4,234) complete the top ten.
Steve Foreman, Founder and CEO of The Property DriveBuy, commented:
“What this data clearly shows is that the UK housing market in 2025 is anything but uniform, and not always predictable. While overall transaction volumes are averaging just over 60,000 per month, activity varies dramatically depending on location, with parts of Scotland and Yorkshire outperforming many traditionally dominant regions. This divergence is being driven by a combination of factors, including relative affordability, local employment strength, lifestyle appeal, and buyer migration away from higher-priced southern markets.
For buyers, this means competition and pricing pressures can look very different just a few miles – perhaps even meters – apart, while for sellers it reinforces the importance of understanding true, hyper-local demand rather than relying on national headlines. This is why securing yourself a great local agent is essential.
In a market this fragmented, the ability to see where homes are becoming available has never been more important. Property DriveBuy’s geolocation-based homesearch platform gives buyers a clearer picture of availability on a street-by-street basis. Someone who is struggling to find a good match in one area could be a few minutes walk away from their dream home, but because traditional postcode-based search algorithms are so constrictive, they might never even know. ”
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