Property transactions buck the seasonal trend, HMRC says

Residential property transactions bucked their usual downward trend in November, HMRC figures have revealed.

Transactions usually have a seasonal drop in November, but the latest HMRC transaction statistics shows 104,670 residential deals in the month, up 5.1% on the month before.

The figure is however down 4.3% year-on-year. In November 2015, there were 109,370 transactions.

Broken down, there were 88,860 transactions this November in England, 8,990 in Scotland, 4,710 in Wales and 2,110 in Northern Ireland.

We have used the non-seasonally adjusted figures, but on a seasonally adjusted-basis there were 97,600 UK transactions.

Commenting on the figures, Adrian Gill, executive director of Your Move & Reeds Rains, said: “With Christmas fast approaching it is not unusual to see a lull in buying and selling, so a slight monthly surge in transactions highlights the ongoing appetite from buyers.

“However, the annual decrease these figures show is likely due to the continuing squeeze on affordability. This is putting pressure on first-time buyers, who are finding it increasingly hard to take their first steps on to the property ladder.

“The Government’s recent announcement of a £1.4bn investment into the housing market, as well as the building of 40,000 new affordable homes, is welcome news towards addressing this issue. Hopefully this funding will start to make a real difference and we will see more buyers secure their dreams of home ownership.”

Doug Crawford, chief executive of My Home Move, was slightly more positive in response to the data.

He said: “The market is well placed to keep growing as we look to 2017. Since the referendum, transaction levels have remained stable largely, which shows that the fundamentals in terms of supply and demand mean the market will weather any further macroeconomic uncertainty.

“In the long term, demand for both rented and owner-occupied accommodation will support price rises and sales volumes.

“There will undoubtedly be challenges for the market over the next twelve months, with the triggering of Article 50 and changes to landlords’ tax relief looming on the horizon.

“However, the property market has shown it is more than strong enough to overcome these obstacles.”

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One Comment

  1. AgentV

    I don’t understand where these figures and predictions keep coming from when others are reporting very low stock levels and lower sales overall for the last year. If anyone wants to join in our survey try this below and post your result (sorry for repeating to those who have seen it before);

    Go on the ‘House prices’ tab on rightmove and put in the first part of the main postcode you sell in e.g M12.change the ‘sold in’ to the ‘last 2 years’ and note the figurethen change it to the ‘last 1 year’ and note the figure.Obviously by taking the second figure off the first you have the number of recorded sales in the year before last. Then divide the ‘last 1 year’ figure by this figure and times by 100 to get a percentage. What result do you get? For our main postcode in the Birmingham MIdlands area it was 77%…..showing that land registry recorded completions have dropped by 23% in our area compared to the previous year.If you give it a go, post a comment in this thread (together with an indication of the general area it is from).

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