April saw drop in residential transactions

June 2, 2022 by Brendan O'Neill

Property Market

The latest figures from HMRC show that April brought a drop in the number of residential property transactions in comparison with the same month for 2021, with the difference being roughly 12%.

These seasonally adjusted figures from the tax body show that there were a total of 106,780 of these transactions during April of this year. In addition to the drop of 12% on the total for April 2021, this also marks a monthly fall of 3.9%, with 114,650 residential transactions having been completed in March.

However, the total figure for last month is still significantly higher than that of April two years ago, when it was 97,830. This suggests that the UK property market remains in a healthy state compared to the period before the Covid-19 pandemic, and this is the case even without seasonal adjustment of the transaction numbers.

This positive view of the market is supported by mortgage advisors, who are indicating that transaction numbers are still high, even if the skyrocketing demand caused by the pandemic is at last starting to ebb a bit.

Emma Hollingworth, MPowered Mortgages’ Distribution Director, pointed out to Mortgage Solutions that these figures were happening in the midst of rising living costs and interest rates. She then added:

“This is further proof of the resilience of our housing market and its ability to perform strongly through difficult economic times.”

Advisors may be able to use their experience and CeMAP course training to identify specialist lenders with mortgages suitable for clients struggling with rising costs.