December brought huge increase in residential transactions

January 30, 2021 by Brendan O'Neill

Property Market

HMRC has revealed that there was a massive increase in the number of residential property transactions that took place during December, compared to both the month and the year before.

In total, there were 129,400 of these transactions during the final month of last year, which represents an increase of 13.1% on the figure for November 2020. When compared with the number of residential property deals that were completed over the course of December 2019, there is an even steeper rise of 31.5%.

Without seasonal adjustment, the residential transactions total for last December increases to 137,200 – a 14% increase on the figure for November and a rise of 34.2% on the December 2019 total.

Keystone Property Finance CEO David Whittaker said that this spike had been caused by people attempting to close deals before the stamp duty threshold goes back to normal on 31st March. He added that this had led to a reversal of the usual situation, whereby December is one of the quietest months of the year for the property market.

Speaking to Financial Reporter, Simon Knight from the Lendco mortgage lender said that the search for roomier properties and the stamp duty situation had fuelled the surge, adding:

“So far this month, we have seen the strong number of applications continue as investors seek to take advantage of the significant stamp duty saving.”

The next few months will be frantic for many advisors, who will need their CeMAP training to help them get deals over the line in time.