Housing transactions - December 2021
HMRC released provisional housing transaction data for December 2021 this morning
What they said
Seasonally adjusted housing transactions in December 2021 were 100,110
This was 7.6% higher than November 2021 and 20% lower than December 2020
Housing transactions during 2021 were at their highest level since 2007
Twindig take
2021 was a bumper year for housing transactions working from home and the race for space got people thing about moving the stamp duty holiday kicked people off their sofas and into action. At almost 1.5 million housing transactions, 2021 has seen the highest level of housing transactions since the heady days of 2007, before the Credit Crunch. The global COVID pandemic is certainly very different from the Global Financial Crisis and we would not expect housing transactions to fall off a cliff this year. Interestingly the 100,110 housing transactions in December is almost identical to the level of housing transactions before the pandemic broke. We hope this is a good omen for more normal times in the year ahead.
Annual housing transactions
2021 was the most active year in the UK housing market since 2021, following the stamp duty holiday we would expect housing transactions in 2022 to be around 1.1-1.2 million as normality returns to the housing market.
2021 the year of the Stamp Duty Holiday
To put 2021 into context, we saw more housing transactions last year than any time since 2007 in the lead up to the global financial crisis. Few, if any, predicted this would be the case. Working from home and the race for space were key drivers, rising cash balances following periods of lockdown also gave people more money to play with, but we believe that it was the stamp duty holiday that turned these plans into actions and the moving daydreams into reality.
In our view, without the stamp duty holiday 2021 would not have been such a bumper year. The test will be the outturn of 2022, working from home, or at least more flexible working will remain in 2022 as will the desire for more space, however, with no stamp duty holiday to motivate movers time will tell if homeowners take action to make their dreams reality or procrastinate.
