The provisional seasonally adjusted estimate of residential transactions in July was 73,740, or 62.8 per cent lower than in June when it jumped to 198,400, Revenue & Customs said yesterday.
July’s data showing a provisional non-seasonally adjusted estimate of 82,110 residential property sales was below the monthly average of 145,000 of the first six months of the year.
It compares with a frantic June, when HMRC reported the highest monthly UK total since the introduction of the statistics in April 2005 and more than double that of a year earlier.
In England and Northern Ireland, buyers raced to complete purchases before the temporarily increased “nil rate” band to £500,000 for residential stamp duty land tax ended on June 30. This relief has since been tapered to £250,000 and the nil rate band will revert back to £125,000 on September 30.
Despite the drop-off in sales activity last month, the HMRC data showed purchases were 1.8 per cent higher than in July last year, when activity was still hit by the near-total housing market closure from March until mid-May.
Property market experts said that while activity has passed its peak, demand remains strong as the pandemic and home-working continues.
This month the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reported that inquiries started shrinking in July, bringing to an end a four-month positive run, while Nationwide’s house price index showed values dropping back by 0.5 per cent in the first such fall since March.
