HMRC January property transaction data

HMRC January property transaction data

Revealing the monthly estimated figures for both residential and non-residential property transactions, HMRC property statistics for January 2017 have recently been released.

Showing data for the UK and its constituent countries, the publication is based on data from both the HMRC’s Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) and the Scottish Administration’s Land and Buildings Transactions Tax (LBTT) databases.

For January 2017, the provisional seasonally adjusted UK property transaction count was 104,820 residential and 11,570 non-residential transactions.

Residential Transactions

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the estimate for the number of residential transactions grew between December 2016 and January 2017 by 4.9%. The seasonally adjusted figure is 0.3% higher than the level recorded in the same month last year.

The transaction growth during March 2016 followed by the significant drop in April is likely to be related to the higher rate of stamp duty for additional properties, introduced in April 2016. Whilst both April and May 2016 are lower than the same months in the previous year, the total between Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 of 2016 should be acknowledged as is it is significantly higher than the corresponding time frame in 2015.

The number of non-adjusted residential transactions in January was about 26.0% lower than December 2016. Compared with January 2016, the number of non-adjusted residential transactions was 2.0% lower.

Non-residential Transactions

For non-residential property transactions, the seasonally adjusted estimate grew between December 2016 and January 2017 by 8.8%. Compared with the corresponding month last year, December’s figure is 16.9% higher.

As can be usually expected with the seasonal nature of purchases, non-adjusted transactions have observed peaks and falls on a monthly basis.

Commenting on the transaction data from January was Katherine Binns, research director at HomeOwners Alliance. She stated: “The latest HMRC data shows it’s been a healthy start to 2017 with seasonally adjusted transactions up 4.9% in January compared to December 2016. Despite ongoing political and economic uncertainty, there’s still a lot of activity happening in the UK housing market which bodes well for buyers and sellers alike.

“It will be interesting to track these figures as the government approaches the ever-looming deadline to trigger Article 50 in March. Recent figures suggest that while the market is functioning properly, homeowners and prospective buyers are being advised to keep a watchful eye as the political and economic situation develops.”

Georgia Owen

Georgia is the Content Executive and will be your primary contact when submitting your latest news. While studying for an LLB at the University of Liverpool, Georgia gained experience working within retail, as well as social media management. She later went on to work for a local newspaper, before starting at Today’s Conveyancer.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *