Research desk

Property intelligence for buyers who do their homework.

Market analysis, neighbourhood guides and buying advice, published weekly by the Cognie research desk.

Latest insights

First-Time Buyer’s Guide to Comparing UK Homes in 2026

First-time homebuyer tips for 2026: compare shortlisted UK homes on upfront cash and true monthly cost, with a worked scorecard.

UK Home Buying Guide: Steps, Costs, and Offer Timing in 2026

Our home buying process guide sets out what to do first, how many weeks offer to completion takes and when each cost is due.

How to Buy a Home in the UK: First Steps and Property Checks

Sort the home buying process into the right order, then run the property checks that matter before you make an offer in the UK.

How to Compare UK Homes and Check if a Price Is Fair

Every offer comes down to three questions: can you afford this home, is it genuinely comparable to others you've seen, and is the asking price supported by what similar properties actually sold for? Asking price is a seller's opinion. Sold prices are evidence. Comparing homes properly means...

Leasehold vs Freehold and Fixed vs Tracker: First-Time Buyer Guide (2026)

Once you have a location, a property type and a budget you can live with, two decisions do most of the work on what owning the place actually costs. The first is ownership structure: whether you buy the freehold or take a leasehold interest, which determines who controls the building and who...

UK Home-Buying Checklist: Neighbourhoods, Viewings, Mortgages and Costs

Buying a house is not one decision. It is a sequence of them, and each one narrows the next: the area you commit to shapes which properties you view, what you see at a viewing shapes what you are willing to borrow, and what you borrow shapes how much room you have left for the costs that arrive...

The Smartest UK Homebuyer Insights: Tools and Resources for 2026

A listing feed tells you what is for sale today. It does not tell you whether the asking price has already been cut twice, how that street has moved over five years, or whether the monthly payment survives a stress test at current rates. Those are different questions, and they need different...

First-time homebuyer tips for checking whether a UK house is fairly priced

An asking price is a seller's opening position, not a valuation. It tells you what the agent thinks the market will bear on the day the listing went live — nothing about what similar homes actually sold for, which way local prices have moved since, or what the roof will cost you in three years....

How to Compare UK Homes as a First-Time Buyer in 2026

Finding a property you like is rarely the hard part. The difficulty is choosing between three or four similar homes in the same price bracket, when your budget is fixed and you have never done this before. Two flats on the same street can differ by thousands of pounds a year once you account for...