22 November 2022
If you are covering HMRC’s monthly property transactions statistics, please see the following comment from Karen Noye, mortgage expert at Quilter:
"Despite expectations that the number of monthly property transactions would start to tail off as people suffer with the cost of living, they have in fact increased when comparing to October 2021. Despite the significant economic headwinds the British public are facing, the provisional seasonally adjusted estimate of UK residential transactions in October 2022 is 108,480, 38% higher than October 2021 but just 2% higher than September 2022.
"However, the figures may not tell the whole story as in September 2021 the stamp duty holiday came to end meaning that most people were looking to complete before the deadline and this may have caused an artificial drop in the number of transactions in October last year.
"The impact of the disastrous mini budget at the end of September this year may also not have had a chance to impact the number of transactions in October. However, while the sky-high interest rate predictions have been somewhat reduced for now, they may still put off future transactions as people hunker down for the winter and ride out the economic storm hitting the UK.
"The pace of transactions will serve as a canary down the mine for house prices and if the number of transactions drop it is likely that house prices will go with it. We are entering a tricky time for the housing market and while today’s results show transactions on the rise, this may be a fluke."
