Half Terms and House Prices: An Oxford Market Update

It’s the February half-term holiday, 2026 – and that means ‘busy’.

You just know that Little Sprouts at Millets Farm will be will be enjoying packed crowds of (very) excited children, the Ignite Sport holiday camps at Oxford City FC and the North Oxford Tennis Club will be in full swing, and if you head down to Hinksey or Cutteslowe Parks, you’ll find that, despite the endless drizzle, the children’s play areas, football pitches and cafés will all be absolutely full of life (and indeed, are those blue skies we see today, at last? Or trying hard to be seen, at least!).

Nevertheless, if you’re currently selling your home in Oxford, can you expect things to feel as busy? Or is February half-term one of those quieter periods, like the Easter break can be, and like the Summer and Christmas holidays almost always are?

Here are our thoughts as independent local estate agents in Oxford.

What’s happening in the property market?

There is good news as we hit the February half-term break. In bigger picture terms, the property market is broadly positive.

House prices continued their upward trend in January, with Halifax reporting rising UK property values – and, notably, that they have risen above £300,000 for the first time, reaching £300,077 in January on a 12-month average, per the Halifax Price Index.

Here’s what else the Halifax Index in January 2026 has shown:

• Monthly Change +0.7%
• Quarterly +0.1%
• Annual Change +1.0%

What is interesting about their figures is that average UK property prices rose from £239,253 in January 2020 to reach £300,077 in January 2026 – an increase of just over 25% in six years.

Also noteworthy is that the price increase from 2020 to 2023 was 18.7%, compared with the 5.7% increase from 2023 to 2026.

Growth in the past three years, yes; but much more muted than those previous three – and certainly behind inflation. This is perhaps a sign that prices that had risen too quickly in the immediate post-Covid years are correcting course.          

At the same time, last week’s vote by the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee was closer than many expected, reflecting ongoing concerns about subdued economic performance.

This may not be great news for the wider economy, but it does, in our view, reopen the possibility of a base rate cut in March, which markets had begun to discount.

Fixed mortgage rates have been edging up again recently, just slightly, following the pattern of swap rates, which had suggested the market was pricing in no further near-term cuts.  

Perhaps that tension is playing on rate setters’ minds.

For local buyers and sellers, this matters. In higher property-price areas like ours, affordability does tend to tighten more quickly when mortgage rates rise, so you can be sure we’ll be keeping a very close eye on it and how it affects you locally.

Which brings us tidily to what probably matters more to you: never mind the national picture, what about the property market and property prices in Oxford?

The Oxford property market is strong despite a flat line in property prices

Here in Oxford, at the time of writing, the average property price over 12 months stands at £491,000, roughly the same as it was a year ago, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). And that is positive, because it was not long ago that we were seeing rolling 12-month price drops of 3%, 4%, or even more, at various points over the past year.

Prices may have flatlined on paper – but the reality is, they have improved, from an annual reduction to, now, a levelling off; and that is not the same story throughout the South East of England, where property values in some places still sit at double-digit drops over the course of the last 12 months – especially in parts of London.

This is the context we need to consider when discussing your move locally, whether you’re selling, buying, or simply keeping tabs on your home’s value.

It shows that what is reported in national news headlines or revealed by national indices can differ from the pictures seen in any local or regional marketplace. The national price indices we get from Halifax, Nationwide, or even Rightmove can paint a broad-brush picture, but there can be quite extreme regional variance. In particular, during 2025, the London, South East and East of England markets have been much more subdued, price-wise, than markets in the North of England and the Midlands.

The fact that prices in Oxford are roughly level with where they were a year ago, therefore, compared to drops of 5% to 7% quite commonly across the South and East of the country, and as much as 15% in some parts of London, speaks volumes about the strength of our local market and the desirability of Oxford as a destination for movers. In addition to property values, we have seen rents in Oxford increase by 6.6% over the year, according to ONS data.

Nevertheless, house prices alone don’t necessarily indicate whether a market is moving in a positive direction.

When you look at that general 25% increase over six years, you can understand that properties in general have plenty of equity in them.

In fact, whether we have seen a flatline in values over 12 months, or we were still looking at the 3-4% drops that have felt normal for much of the last 8 months or so, the overall growth we have seen here over not just the past six years, but even many decades, has been so significant that local sellers can afford to take a reduction this year and still make a comfortable move – especially if they are moving locally or to many locations overseas, where sale proceeds may convert favourably on current currency exchange rates.

Most people understand that values are relative. As long as there isn’t a negative equity situation, most movers can think of it as transferring equity from one property to another.

In other words, even if a seller had lost some value in their home this year, if the property they are purchasing had also lost a similar value, there would usually be no financial reason the move couldn’t proceed.

It may depend on mortgage rates, which is why what the MPC votes to do next month is of interest, but generally speaking, it is much more a matter of market confidence.

And that is where the local market is showing real strength, despite anything that prices may or may not have done over the past year – and why this February half-term holiday is still likely to feel busy out there in terms of property market activity.

Plenty of choice for buyers

If you are moving home locally, there are definitely encouraging signs that the Oxford market is coming to life as we hit the half-term break.

At the time of writing, Rightmove shows 204 new listings in Oxford over the past two weeks alone, with 960 properties currently for sale overall. This is a healthy level of choice for buyers in general, but that two-week number, in particular, is another sign of steady and positive market activity.

But will the February half-term holiday week dampen that rising activity? As mentioned, other holiday periods are known to have that stifling effect on property market activity – Christmas and Summer in particular. But historically, this half-term week in February does not tend to have that same effect.

There will be a bit of holiday-making going on, for sure – particularly amongst the skiers out there – but most people do stay at home, perhaps with children off school, but nevertheless not so distracted from life as they often are during those other major holidays.

On top of this, the property market itself is still in that active phase following the post-Christmas/early New Year bounce that we have written about previously (see article here); those who put their Oxford property for sale as part of a ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ drive in early January are starting to go under offer in numbers by around this point, five or six weeks later – and many of them are purchasing another property to move to. This only adds to the swelling number of active buyers who begin their search at around this time, with the idea of a Springtime or early summer move in mind.

So, with listing numbers growing, but competition from other buyers also increasing, if you are buying a property in Oxford right now, it pays to have a plan.

If you’re moving home, clarity is your friend

If you are heading out to view properties this half-term, our strongest piece of advice is to get crystal clear on what you need, what you want (as these can be different), and the reasons you might truly want to be in one particular location rather than another – schools, transport, recreation grounds, bus-gates, hospitals, or whatever else it may be.

That matters far more than the pretty pictures you’ll scroll through online. Those can draw you in – but knowing ‘what, where and why’ helps us as professional estate agents truly get to grips with what will work for you, and what could be made to work.

You want four bedrooms because you want one of those for a dedicated study? You might be missing out on an ideal home with only three bedrooms, that nevertheless has a perfectly sized shed at the end of the garden that could be easily converted.

This is why talking through your requirements with a professional is a good first step. It doesn’t mean any obligation, but from our point of view as agents, it means we can be on the lookout for the right property when we are invited to meet potential sellers.

As we can see, the market is picking up, and we are optimistic, with a good level of choice available to Oxford buyers. But finding the right property isn’t a tick-box exercise. It’s about finding somewhere that genuinely fits your next chapter – and that is what we want to help people achieve.