Figures show drop in residential transactions during May

June 28, 2022 by Brendan O'Neill

Property Market

New seasonally adjusted data issued by HMRC shows that May brought a year-on-year drop in the total number of residential transactions, although the figure stayed higher than before the pandemic.

This HMRC data reveals an annual drop of 5.1% in residential transactions over the course of last month. In total, May saw 109,210 of these completed. However, the tax authority has pointed out that this figure is still significantly higher than that of May 2019, before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. During that month, there were 96,500 completed residential transactions.

HMRC stated that its figures for May of this year show that the housing market starting to achieve greater stability again following the effects of the pandemic.

The number of residential transactions that took place over May 2021 – when the crisis was still at its height – was 115,070. The holiday on paying stamp duty remained in place at that time.

Speaking to Mortgage Solutions, SPF Private Clients’ Chief Executive, Mark Harris, said that the UK housing market was still showing plenty of life and mortgage advisors were still extremely busy. He then went on to add:

“Yet another in a string of rate rises from the Bank of England is certainly focusing the minds of borrowers, keen to secure a fixed rate mortgage before pricing edges higher.”

May brought a 1.3% rise in residential transactions compared with April.

Much of the work that advisors with the CeMAP qualification are doing is finding affordable fixed rate loans for clients ahead of further rises.