The latest data confirms what estate agents up and down the country have been sensing for months: the arithmetic of moving house in Britain has stopped adding up. Property turnover, the lifeblood of a functioning housing market, has fallen sharply as the combined burden of stamp duty, legal fees, mortgage arrangement costs and higher borrowing rates has eroded the financial case for relocating. For a market that depends on a steady churn of transactions to keep prices discoverable, chains moving and construction pipelines fed, this is not a minor statistical wobble. It is a structural problem with consequences that will ripple through every corner of the property industry over the next year.