UK monthly property transactions tail off slightly in May

Unsuprisingly transactions were way up on last April when the nation was mid first lockdown and the housing market ground to a halt but down a bit on March when everyone thought they were working to a stamp duty deadline - that much is pretty obvious. But what of the future? Well there will likely be a stampede of people completing before the new end of June deadline meaning transactions this month will likely be higher again and then will settle in to a more normal pace from July onward. The moral of the story? Don't read too much into the month by month stats as they're warped at the moment by external factors creating strict deadlines and bottlenecks but expect these to disappear over the coming months and a proper picture of where the market sits develop.

"Homebuyers have been desperate to get their purchases through and avoid paying Stamp duty. The biggest lenders still have billions of pounds worth of mortgages to complete. For many people there has never been a better time to secure a mortgage with sub-1% rates and more generous income multiples."

"Transactions in May were driven by a combination of the Stamp Duty holiday, increased availability of mortgages with historically low interest rates, a nationwide FOMO and the increased savings that people built up during all the lockdowns. One thing we have learned from the pandemic is not so much location, location, location, but rather space, space and more space, indoors and out. "The data is likely to be very healthy for June and July too as solicitors burst blood vessels trying to get anxious buyers over the line before they get trounced with the ending of the SDLT holiday. There's likely to be a big number of people that miss the deadline, and as it stands there's little that can be done about it. "Communication with conveyancers is so very difficult even though they seem to have had phones surgically attached to the side of their heads due to the mountain of transactions they're dealing with. Some mortgage lenders have already set deadlines for dates that funds must be requested by with one lender already having passed that date, meaning that even if a last minute dive for the line may be possible if those funds aren't ready there's almost nothing that can be done about it. "Advice for the people that are waiting to find out if they'll complete in time - hope for the best and prepare for the worst."

"The scramble to save up to £15,000 in cold hard cash has, unsurprisingly, injected pure rocket fuel into the market. Indeed, the Stamp Duty holiday has been the overwhelming driver of the property market since it was announced by Rishi Sunak last July."

"Without doubt, the Stamp Duty relief has driven the strong property transaction volumes. Overall, I would expect the next few months to drop off significantly. That said, for high value properties, we have seen an increase in enquiries from High Net Worth clients abroad. With the restrictions fully easing in the next few months, I think demand for prime property will continue to increase. The Stamp Duty relief doesn't make a significant difference for this demographic."