Mike Scott, Chief Property Analyst at online estate agent Yopa, gives his views on the new numbers for HMRC property transactions.

HMRC has released the numbers for home sales in December, completing the data for 2018. The number of houses sold was 3.6% higher than in December 2017, continuing the upturn that we have seen in market activity since October. The total number of houses sold in the UK in all of 2018 was 1.19 million, only very slightly down on 2017’s 1.22 million.

The first quarter of 2018 was quite slow, with the bad weather caused by the ‘Beast from the East’ reducing activity in the housing market, and so we expect the year-on-year comparisons to continue to show an increase as we move into 2019. The economic fundamentals for the market are still strong, and affordability has improved, but there is no sign of a renewed house price boom.

Assuming that a chaotic no-deal Brexit can be avoided, we therefore expect that overall housing market activity will be much the same as it has been in every year since 2014, with an average of 100,000 homes sold every month.

Photo: Mike Scott