The number of property transactions continued to fall in April, according to the latest HMRC figures.
For April 2018, the number of non-adjusted residential transactions was 12.5 per cent lower than the month before. This figure was also 2 per cent lower than April 2017.
In total there were 86,200 property transactions in the UK in April. HMRC figures show that for every month of this year, this figure has been below 100,000 transactions.
In contrast, monthly transactions exceeded 100,000 for each of the last six months of 2017.
However, the seasonally-adjusted figures show a reversal of this trend, with the number of residential property transactions edging up by 3.5 per cent between March and April this year.
This figure is still 2.7 per cent lower when compared to the same period last year.
Legal & General Mortgage Club’s director Kevin Roberts adds: “A lack of appropriate housing stock and rising demand continues to squeeze the bottleneck in our housing market, preventing any real momentum from forming. It is limiting the options for those looking to step on the property ladder, or up, or downsize. ”
Bluestone Mortgages director of sales and marketing Steve Seal says these figures show “the sluggish nature of the housing market”.
He adds: “House prices and transactions continue to slow and the monthly peaks and troughs of transactions fails to disguise the lack of suitable housing coming onto the market, rendering the market inaccessible to some aspiring homeowners.”
Yopa’s chief property analyst Mike Scott adds: “These [seasonally-adjusted] figures show some recovery from March’s poor performance, suggesting that the downturn was at least partly due to the bad weather.
“June is the peak month for house sales, so as long as the figures continue to hold up for the next couple of months, the total number of sales in 2018 may not be much different from 2017, at around 1.2m. This is despite the slower start to the year.”
